


Gravity (just keep me where the light is)

by ConcerningConstellations



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ana is a mom, Angela "Mercy" Ziegler-centric, Angela is Traumatized and I'm sorry, Angela is smol, Angst, Child!Angela, Eventual Hana/Lucio, Famfiction, Fluff, Gen, Graphic content-- gore, Hurt/Comfort, I did this instead of sleeping, Jack Is Bad At Video Games, Jack Is One Protective Boi, Jack is a Dad, Jack just about adopts Angela, Jack rescues Angela, Kid!Angela, Kidfic, Lucio is a good friend, MULTICHAPTER????, OCD, Overwatch AU, PTSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Fall of Overwatch, Protective Jack, Self-Indulgent, Symbolism, Team Dynamics, Team as Family, That's it, as per freaking usual, dad!Jack, dont read if you're squirmy, famfic, in which Ana Amari needs a drink, no, no romantic relationships, seriously, that's the story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-10
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2018-11-12 07:36:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 50,755
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11157246
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ConcerningConstellations/pseuds/ConcerningConstellations
Summary: “I need to know that there's a way for people like us to end up okay. I need to know that there even is such a thing as okay, maybe even good, and it's out there and we just haven't found it yet. There's got to be a happier ending than this, here. There's got to be a better story. Because we deserve one. You deserve one.” -Katja Millay-Jack Morrison had been chasing after war for nearly all his life. Angela Ziegler was simply a victim of it. Hardly seven years old, a bombing on her town leaves her a traumatized and orphaned, left with nothing, no one.Jack intends to fix this.(OR: the Angela kid-fic that literally no one asked for).





	1. After

**Author's Note:**

> i know i promised Talon!Mercy, but i got sidetracked, and now it's Smol!Mercy being rescued (read: adopted) by Jack and Ana and Reyes and the Crew™. this was mostly a self-indulgence-thing, and also my attempt to take a crack at how war shapes the lives of the people forced to live in it. also, Angela's traumatized. also i'm sorry. 
> 
> the stylization of this may seem different than the last two works, but that's only because, frankly, it's a different kind of story. if you could leave me confirmation that this did NOT, in fact, suck, that would be very appreciated. i want to write more of this, and it would be easier if i knew that there were people who were interested in reading it.
> 
> thanks, guys. your support this far has been staggering.

The only things worse than the bombings were what they left behind.

 

Pieces of cement and drywall and broken pipes, use-to-be-buildings that caved in under the blast, their skeletons barely standing. A dark, toxic sky, heavy with ash falling like rotted rain. Streets covered in soot and sinew, the smell of smoke, of fire, of the bodies being burned as the blackbirds came hungry and left full.

 

Jack hated those birds. 

 

Hated the way they arrived in flying swarms, swooping down on whatever was left of a person, picking off the meat, having their fill. Hated the way it didn't faze the creatures, the way they managed to be calloused against it all, the way the thousands of lives that were taken here didn't change their nature. The way that their presence signified his failure; the fact that he was too late for this place.

 

Ana walked next to him, checking in the cracks of the pavement, the ruins of what used to be a home. She didn't say much. When he looked her way he saw the clamminess of her skin, the way her hands were hesitant to stray far from where her sniper sat slung across one shoulder, like she was itching for a fight, a conflict, something tangible to take to hell. Anything but this. Anything but a massacre.

 

She reached up to her radio, pressing a finger to where it sat in her ear. “Block B is empty. Moving forward to C, over.”

 

This was day three of clean up. 

 

That’s what they called it, anyways: _clean up;_ as if it were fixable, as if they could put it all back together again, good as new, like the ten omnic bombs weren't dropped, like nearly nine-thousand people weren't killed in the nighttime, no warning, no preface. Just gone. Gone, gone, gone.

 

“You think anyone’s out here?” Jack asked, not because he didn't know the answer, but because the sound of crackling fires and silence was beginning to get to him in a bad way.

 

Ana shrugged, helped him overturn a slab a pavement, revealing nothing underneath but a room full of rubble. “I don't know. There’s always the chance.”

 

She was trying to be hopeful, and he appreciated it, but they both knew that this wasn't a place for that. Not now. Maybe never again. He lifted his head, looked out over miles of what used to be a prospering Swiss town, now a grey wasteland, what would one day be only grass and fields and ruins.

 

“We should have been here,” Jack said, no louder than a whisper.

 

Ana only nodded, like she couldn't bear the words, and then they continued to pick through the wreckage, because that’s all they could do, because that was all that was left.

 

Hours pass, and they find nothing. Reyes radios in, tells them that he’ll pick them up in less than sixty minutes, that they gave it their best shot. Ana just says they’ll be ready for extraction. Jack says nothing.

 

The light was getting bullied down under the horizon, the nighttime growing closer, signifying the end of another day full of walking among the crashed cars and carnage. It was hard to believe that anyone survived the bombings, especially this close to the impact zone, but Jack knew that this was better than pacing in his room, burning a hole in the floor with the soles of his boots. Besides, like Ana said, there was still a chance they’d find someone out here. A chance of infinitesimal probability, but infinitely larger than nothing.

 

Flickering on his flashlight, Jack did a circle, glancing at the collapsed concrete around him, the sheets of bent metal, the bloodstains. His chest was full of lead, sleep pulling hard at his eyelids. His feet halted on their own accord.

 

“I think I’m done,” he said, simply.

 

Ana slowed to a stop, looked back behind her shoulder. She hesitated, her eyes dropping down to the rubble at her feet, like she didn't want to give in. “Me too,” she admitted quietly, almost ashamed.

 

They sat on the hood of a broke-down truck and waited, shared a flask of water, watched the light die out and bleed red against the bumpy, battered skyline. Ana lied her weapon across her lap, ran her hands over the muzzle, the loaded cartridge, like she was trying to find comfort in the familiarity. Jack just buried his chin into his palms, breathed through the cracks of his calloused fingers. The sunset washed over them in a brief burst of warmth as they listened to the shifting debris, the crackling, the cawing of the birds and the faint scratching. Before he knew it, Jack’s eyes began to drop, his mind wander—

 

Wait. _Wait._

 

Scratching?

 

He lifted his head, hands dropping as he perked an ear, trying to triangulate the sound. Ana looked up, alarmed.

 

“What?” she asked.

 

Jack shushed her frantically, praying he had heard correctly, that it wasn't just the wind against stone. He hopped off the vehicle, held up a hand to the woman, waiting. A heated sensation began to flood into his chest, a mixture of adrenaline and anxiety and a dangerous splash of hope. 

 

A stretch of silence, empty and long. He took a slow step forwards, ignoring the concerned look burrowing between his shoulder blades, courtesy of Ana. Then he heard it again: the sound of something brushing against the concrete, barely audible, but there. The feeling in his chest doubled, and suddenly he was very much awake.

 

“Did you hear that?” he asked, rushing towards a pile of walls in pieces, wrapping his hands around the edges of a large slab and pulling it away. Ana was hot on his heels.

 

“No,” she said, bending down to help him, “What was it?”

 

Jack just shook his head, digging vigorously down into the debris with enough force to bruise his fingers, muscles straining as he struggled to lift some of the heavier blocks. “I’m not sure, but… I just— I _heard_ something,” he said, not pausing from his work. 

 

Ana opens her mouth to say something, but is cut off by another soft, small sound— the scratch, scratch, scratching of something under their fingers, just barely loud enough to notice, barely anything more than a whisper. But the quiet sound is enough to fill them with the determination to dredge out this entire block, uncover every corner, hollow every building.

 

They look at each other once, lips parted, eyes wide. Then they dig like they're digging for gold.

 

* * *

 

It feels like hours, honestly. Every second stretches out, a moment into a millennia, everything they did taking too long, too long, too long. Dirt wedges under their fingernails, splinters cutting into their palms, their knees scraping against the rocks as they kneeled over to reach for the next pieces of cement, the broken slates of roofing, what they assume use to be part of a kitchen sink. Anything they could get their hands on, anything that would bring them closer to what they begged to be a survivor.

 

“Hello? Can anyone hear me?” Jack yelled, not stopping. 

 

Nothing responded, not even the sound of scratching. It had been minutes since they heard it last, and it made the adrenaline spike in Jack’s chest.

 

Ana brought away a final fraction of rock, revealing a sort of alcove leading down, narrow and dark and extraordinarily unstable. They looked at each other, both knowing that one wrong move in there could lead to a complete cave in.

 

“Hello?” Jack called again, suddenly desperate.

 

Ana was already halfway through shedding her outer coat, leaning her gun against a pillar. “I’ll go,” she said, and Jack shot a hand out to grab her arm, frightened that she would slip away before the words were out his mouth.

 

“No,” he stated, giving her a hard look, “That place could come down if you so much as breathe on it wrong. Too risky.”

 

She shot him an incredulous glare. “Since when do we give a damn about _risk?_ Someone could be in there— could have been stuck for days. They might not have much longer.”

 

“I know,” Jack agreed, fitting his flashlight between his teeth and zipping up his jacket, tossing his cap to the side, “That’s why I’m going in. Keep you comms on, okay?”

 

Ana narrowed her dark eyes, teeth bared. “I’m smaller. I can fit better.”

 

“I’m the captain. I can give orders, and I am: Stay. Here.” He got down on his hands and knees, gauging the dimensions of the tunnel, not saying what was really burning a hole on the tip of his tongue: _One of us is a mother, Ana. One of us has to give a damn._

 

Looking over his shoulder, he said, “I’ll be back.” 

 

She nodded stiffly, and he was gone, crawling carefully through the darkness and dirt, tucking his flashlight into the crook of his arm.

 

The air was stale and sour, churning like a storm in his lungs, and for a moment he had to pause to adapt to the tightness of the walls around him. He wasn't a claustrophobic individual by any means, but it wasn't hard be unnerved by the lack of space down there. Every movement was a risk, so he proceeded forward slowly, slithering on his forearms and hips and taking in the wreckage around him, wondering if someone really could have survived having a building dropped on them. Despite his better judgement, hope blossomed in his chest. 

 

It was quickly choked out when the smell hit him.

 

He fought the urge to be sick when it pressed up against his face with no warning, the scent of decaying flesh and dried blood and bodies, the scent of death, of something rotting. It pushed down his nose and throat, thick and endless, determined to reach his lungs, his heart, the fragile things he kept there. It took him a minute to convince himself to move forward, forcing himself not to gag.

 

He went on like that for awhile: dragging himself onwards with his elbows and knees, trying to breathe through the terror, the dust catching in the rays of his flashlight and dancing like fireflies. Soon, Ana checked in. 

 

“Anything?” she asked, steely.

 

“No. I haven't gotten that far, though. Standby.”

 

“Jack, it’s not safe for you to—“

 

_“Standby.”_

 

The silence she sent him was suffocating. He got back to work.

 

It is only when he reaches a final dead end— when he is completely convinced that this place is empty of life, carrying only carnage and cold bodies— that he finds her. 

 

At first she appeared only as another amorphous blur out of the corner of his eyes, swallowed up in dark, just a bolder, an out-of-place bundle of debris, he concluded. For a moment there, he was about to turn himself around, crawl back out the way he came, hang his hand and tell Ana it wasn't anything, just the walls settling, the sound of cement cracking under the pressure. Tell her that it was time they go home.

 

But then the light catches something— something that takes a moment for him to compute, like he was a satellite struggling to find a signal, like there was just too much information coming in at once. For a handful of seconds, he could only stare.

 

Her eyes— the only things that kept their color down here, that weren’t slathered in shades of dirty grey— struck him like blue fire, little orbs of ice that eyed him through half-shut lids. They blinked long, heavy blinks, trailing him tiredly, as if she wasn't sure of what she was seeing. She laid crumpled against the ground, bleeding from her hairline, bruised and battered with blotches of purple and brown, her little fingers curled around nothing. Jack can see her ribs when she breathes, in and out, in and out, shallow and hungry and harrowed.

 

He nearly rushes forward, the adrenaline flooding like fire into his bloodstream, but then remembers how he must be careful here, lest he risks having this place swallow them whole. Swallowing hard, he maneuvers closer, trying to keep his heart from crawling out his chest.

 

“Hello,” he says gently, moving the flashlight into one of his hands. The figure just whimpers, trying to pick her head off the cold cement only to drop it back down, obviously exhausted, not to mention half-starved. Jack shakes his head, slowly drawing closer. 

 

“It’s alright, I gotcha, don't move,” he tells her softly, keeping the panic far from his voice. Up this close, he can see how one of her legs is stuck under a heavy pile of rock and rubble, painted red and probably broken. “Don’t move, sweetie,” he says again, this time with more urgency.

 

Her lips are cracked and bleeding, chapped to a point where forming words was difficult. “ _Mama_ ,” she wheezes, arm dragging against the debris as she tried to reach for him, her accented voice so quiet he nearly misses it. Her fingers brush up against his sleeve. 

 

Jack nods, lets his hand cover hers for a second as he assesses the situation. “She… she’s not here right now. But I’m going to get you out, okay?”

 

She groans, a sound that grows into a cough, racking her small form for all it’s worth. Carefully, Jack reaches behind him, bringing out the canteen of water from his back pocket and wishing he had left more inside it. He helps lift her head up, one large hand gently supporting her upper back, the other moving the lips of the carton closer to her mouth. The girl winces, and for a moment Jack worries that he had accidentally aggravated her leg, or perhaps some other injury he couldn't see. But then she latches onto the water jug with both hands, draining it with a few thirsty gulps. He watches as her little shoulders droop with relief.

 

“Better?” he asks, positioning himself so she could lean against him, trying to determine how bad of a shape she was in. It was difficult to see the bruises and scratches littering her skin under all the dust, but despite that and the darkness that surrounded them, he could see she was young— six at the oldest, her wrists thin and her face soft and youthful. 

 

She doesn't reply, just paws at the empty canteen, as if asking for more. 

 

“I’m sorry,” he says, putting the metal contained back in his pocket. “It’s empty. My friend can give you some, though. Once we get out of here.”

 

Much to his surprise, the girl just shakes her head at this, attempts to lean away from him as if the touch of his flesh was unpleasant. “ _Mama_ ,” she says again, just as quietly, looking at her trapped leg and tugging feebly. She whimpered when something shifts above them, a rock coming loose, possibly, a consequence of the motion. Jack holds up his hands, trying not to panic at the thought of it all coming down— cement and cobble and ceiling tile collapsing in on all sides, burying the both of them alive in a tomb of ruins.

 

“Woh, woh, take it easy,” he tells her, and he kicks himself mentally when he recognizes how distressed he sounds. He swallows and tries again, managing to keep his voice level this time around. “Just… just let me help.”

 

She gives him a hard, measured look, and suddenly her eyes are too old, too sad, too hurt to belong to such a young child. She flicks her chin to the gun on his back, flinching when he reaches for it. 

 

_Right_ , he thinks. Because the bad people with guns did this to her. No wonder she’s afraid of him. Slowly, he removes the rifle from his back, empties the cartridge before her eyes and then sets it aside as far as he can, which, admittedly, isn't far considering how narrow the passage was. 

 

“I just want to help,” he reiterates, emphasizing every word. 

 

They look at one another, eye to eye, soul to soul, listen to the the world above them creak and groan. Then she just nods, giving in, her limbs going limp once more against the ground as if she simply lost the energy to keep herself up. Jack moves to her trapped leg, looking at how it was completely covered from knee to toes underneath the rubble. He puts a finger to the comm in his ear.

 

“Ana,” he says, praying the signal hadn't gone out this deep in. 

 

For once, he was lucky. “Still here,” comes his friend’s voice, “You coming back?”

 

“No. No, Ana, I got a little girl in bad shape down here. It’s not good.”

 

There is a silence on her side, what he assumes to be shock. “You… you _found_ someone,” she responds slowly, not quite a question, like she wanted to make sure she hadn't misheard.

 

He looks at the girl beside him, her half-lidded eyes, the blood dried atop her forehead. “Yeah,” he says, something besides adrenaline burning in his chest, “I found her.”

 

He explains her condition briefly, tells Ana to have a med pack ready for when they got out along with any rations they had left. She encourages him to be gentle, explains how three days without sustenance could affect someone so young, tells him to make sure to keep her calm best he can. 

 

“What’s her name?” Ana asked, somewhat breathless.

 

“Ah… I don’t know. She doesn't talk much.”

 

“Shock, probably.”

 

“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll, uh… I’ll see you when we get out, alright?”

 

“Alright,” she says, and he thinks she’s gone for a moment. But then she’s back in his ear, hesitant, softer than before. “And, Jack?”

 

“Yeah?”

 

“Good call.”

 

They leave it at that. 

 

Jack points his flashlight down at the girl’s injured leg, winces in sympathy at the sight of the torn skin, the layer of crimson covering her flesh. He is beyond surprised that she isn't wailing with the pain. When he glances her way, he sees the girl staring at him, icy orbs watchful and unmoving, like she is anxious over what he’ll do next. He wishes he knew. 

 

He runs his fingers gently over the place where her leg stopped and the rock started, surprised to find a softer texture, much different than concrete. Frowning, he moves the light down, trying to better see what he was touching. He nearly throws up. 

 

It’s a body.

 

No, no, that’s the wrong word— it’s a _corpse._

 

The thing cushioning the little girl’s leg from a ton of debris is a dead woman, only partially visible, much of her body buried by the wreckage. From what he can see, her skin is pale and encrusted with bile and blood, her flesh rotting slowly, her fingers rimmed with black and her body bloated. The horrible smell intensifies, and again, Jack struggles to not be sick. 

 

The girl is still staring at him, sending short glances to the dead body on top of her, as if she preferred to not look at it. Then she lowers her eyes, tugs her trapped leg once more, and Jack can only imagine what it would be like to be tucked against a stranger’s decaying flesh for three days, how much it would repulse him, how terrifying this girl must have been down here, keeping the company of ghosts. 

 

_“Mama…”_ She says the word like a lament this time, all heavy and aching and anguished.

 

Jack blinks, eyes suddenly widening in terror. He raises a numb finger, points it at the dead woman. “Is she… that’s not… _her_ , is it?”

 

The girl only turns her head, sniffles once. Jack feels his world tilt sideways. 

 

“I’m getting you out of here,” he says, very clearly, for himself as much as her, because suddenly the thought of this girl suffering silently in the dark for seventy-two hours straight, pressed up against the dead and dying, makes him want to find the nearest omnic and put their head through a wall. Gently, he puts one of his hands on her upper leg and the other on the stone surrounding it, as far away from the corpse as possible. The girl stiffens, a noise trembling deep in her throat.

 

Jack hushes her softly, trying to dig out some of the loose rubble around her thigh, not feeling it when his fingers scratch and bruise from the effort. “Just breathe, baby. You’re doing great.”

 

When he is forced to touch the body once more he does so quickly, calloused and cold, is if it were nothing but squishy stone. He would have given anything to have had his gloves on. Carefully, Jack attempts to lift the dead woman, pleading silently that it would leave enough room to remove the leg— he didn't wand to think about what the other option was if he couldn't get it loose. 

 

The entire place groans at the shift of structure. Jack stays very still.

 

“Okay,” he says, little more than a whisper, bracing himself. “This is going to hurt, but I promise everything’s going to be fine.” He hopes for a response, but gets nothing except a silent, distracted nod, the girl’s eyes still focused far away.

 

With a considerable measure of strength, Jack lifts the corpse higher, managing to raise it and the wreckage crushing down atop it an inch, ignoring the bodily fluids smothering his palm. Then he stuck his arm in beneath it— parallel to the girl’s leg— finds what feels like the twisted flat of her foot, and then pulls. Hard. 

 

The limb slides out from under the dead body just as the girl lets out a broken sob, the pain making her convulse and shutter out sentences in what he assumes is German as the feeling rushed back into her leg, her shoulders shaking with the strain of it all. The walls around them settle with a few concerning sounds as he releases his hold on the corpse, but they don’t collapse. He wipes his hands on his pants, then reaches for the smaller figure. 

 

“I’m sorry,” he starts, the sight of her crying driving his heart into his throat. He rests his hands on one of her little shoulders, atop the torn sleeve of her shirt. “It’s over, now. It’s okay. Show me where it hurts— could you do that for me, please?”

 

She doesn't flinch away from his touch this time, and if anything, his request seems to calm her. Sniffling, she nods, twisting herself around slowly to point at the space directly beneath her kneecap, where he could see most of the half-dried red gathering. When he focuses the light on it, he sees a sliver of white, what he assumes to be bone. He inhales sharply, passes it off as an attempt to clear his throat. 

 

“Right,” he says faintly, lifting his head to glance at their exit, swallowing hard. “Just a scratch, then.”

 

The girl tilts her head, brows bending down ever so slightly. She shakes her head, her bangs falling in front of her face.

 

“Well,” Jack admits, cradling her injured leg with one careful hand, “Ah, maybe a little more.”

 

“It is shattered.” 

 

Her English is a bit shaky, catching on the edges, but he understands every word, and for a moment he just stares, shocked. She says this shyly but without doubt, leaning down to lay her back on the ground, wincing.

 

When he finds his voice once more, he explains, “Don’t worry. My friend outside can help with that, but we have to get to her first, okay?”

 

The girl looked away, glancing back at where the figure laid crushed by the rocks, opens her mouth like she needs to tell him more but instead speaks nothing but silence. Her head shakes from side to side slightly.

 

Jack feels that tug in his chest once more, struggles with words he doesn't know how to say. “Mama… she can’t come. I’m sorry.”

 

There is a pause, a hard reckoning. He can practically see the grief taking root within her, watches as her nose scrunches up, her breathing shallow as she struggles to compute. 

 

“She just… she can’t leave with us,” Jack says again, trying to get her to understand.

 

The girl looks up at him. She shakes her head once more, azure eyes tired and sore and confused. “She already left,” the child replies quietly, like it’s obvious.

 

Jack just nods, because he fears if he says the words, they’ll shake.

 

* * *

 

Ana is waiting for them at the mouth of the exit, framed by the newborn nighttime, her hair blowing out behind her as she eagerly helps take the girl from Jack’s arms. Everything about the sniper is turned soft and gentle at the sight of her little, battered form, setting her down carefully on a block of cement, smiling and helping brush off some of the dirt from her shoulders. The woman’s voice is warm and welcoming, trying to wash away the terror painted in grey pastels along her face.

 

“What’s your name, dear?” Ana asked, helping the girl twist the top of her canteen, watching as she drank so fast the water ran down her chin. When she pulled away from the bottle’s lips, short of breath, she made no move to respond. 

 

Ana knelt down by where her injured leg hung, inspecting the break with calculating eyes. “Do you have any family close by?”

 

The girl nodded slowly, nibbling on the granola bar that had been taken out of its wrapper and handed to her. 

 

“Where are they?”

 

She stuck out a scrapped hand, pointed it down to the way they had came, under rubble and wreckage. Ana swallows and says nothing.

 

Once Jack finishes dusting off his knees and elbows, he draws closer, squats down next to Ana and takes a breath, trying to find balance. The sky is big and boundless above them, speckled faintly with stars, constellations he’s not sure he recognizes anymore. He is thankful for the breeze rushing against his skin, helping him cool off, taking away the stench soot and singed skin. The soldier leans in, whispers in the woman’s ear. 

 

“Ana,” he starts, not knowing how to finish. The corpse is fresh and clear on the underside of his eyelids. 

 

“Yes,” she says in that same low tone, digging around in her coat for medical supplies, bringing out some bandages, boxes of needle and thread. 

 

He fights for every syllable, cringing when they turn out flat, dropping to the floor like lead. “She was buried under her mother’s body. For days.” 

 

He watches as the woman takes out a bottle of disinfectant, shakes it well before soaking a rag in the clear liquid. For a moment her eyes are hard, emotionless things, like she was refusing the urge to recognize the repulsive picture Jack had just barely painted for her. Then they loosen, stare up at the little girl, who now appeared to be inhaling the granola bar whole.

 

“It’s a hard war,” she says quietly, as if that was supposed to make it easier, as if that were supposed to make it _right_. 

 

Jack rubs his hands together, forcing the heat in his chest to quell, forcing the air to enter and leave his lungs. “What can I do?”

 

She hesitated, the rag still clutched in one careful hand. “Sit with her. This won’t be pleasant.”

 

Nodding, he stretches out his legs, rising to his full height for a moment before settling down next to the girl, leaving a sliver of space between them. She glances sideways at him, still finishing off the ration, and then she does something that makes his heart do front-flips, makes his chest compress and expand like a blackhole, hungry and suddenly addicted: She smiles. All lips and no teeth, not huge, but enough. In her own strange, unconventional way, she was thanking him.

 

“I’m Jack,” he says, realizing he had forgotten to introduce himself down there in the depths. She nods. “Ah, my friend Ana is going to help heal your leg, but it’s going to sting a bit.” She nods again, her eyes drooping despite the warning. Hesitantly, her hand brushes against the hem of his sleeve, fingers folding into the fabric, white-grey against the blue. The space between them ceases to be.

 

Jack nearly puts and arm around her, draws her in close, but decides that after being stuck in such a small space for so long, she probably would appreciate a little room to breathe. With effort, he restrains himself.

 

“Deep breath,” Ana said from beneath them, and then pressed the soaked material tightly against the injury, holding the leg still as its owner nearly jumps off her perch. 

 

The grip on Jack’s sleeve tightened immensely, twisting into the fabric, blue eyes dilating as the air catches in her throat. She tucks her chin between her shoulder, hair once more falling into her face as she shakes with the pain. Despite this, she doesn't scream. Jack leans down closer, murmurs soft nothings against her ear— how she’s doing so well, how soon it would all be over, all finished, all gone in the wind. 

 

Deft hands pull the rag away— ruined with watered-down red and filth—and then unravel a small army of bandages, pulling the sterile, white material around the girl’s knee and foreleg, tight and practiced. 

 

“All done for now,” Ana says smoothly, removing her latex gloves. “Stitches are going to have to wait until they properly set the bone. I can’t do it here. And then maybe a week off her feet, depending on how good of a doctor she gets.”

 

“She’ll get the best,” Jack states, his fingers brushing gently through the girl’s hair, finding it off-white under all the grime. Ana looks like she wants to say something, but just resorts to packing up her kit, tucking it back into her long coat. She brings herself up and settles on the other side of the child, managing to send a small smile her way before turning to glance up at the empty sky, wondering why Reyes was taking so long to get there. 

 

She is surprised when a tiny hand weaves its way into the fabric of her coat, right before her wrist, tugging weakly.

 

Looking down at the contact, she see’s the girl staring up at her, eyes brimming and barely open. She points to herself, a finger digging into the torn, dirty shirt covering her chest. 

 

“Angela,” she says, quietly.

 

Ana’s lips fall open, her head nodding slowly, and then she watches as the girl deflates into Jack’s arms, the grip on her sleeve going slack. Her eyes nearly close, her breath evening out as what’s left of her consciousness comes loose. Taken off guard, Jack gently guides her closer, helps her tuck her cheek into the bend of his shoulder and brushes the ash from her eyelashes as she drifts between the shores of restless and waking. He doesn't know how tightly to hold her, hesitates to so much as touch her wrong.

 

He looks up at Ana, lips parted, throat tight with things he doesn't know how to put into words— an intense sort of desperation, like he needs to know if she is sharing the sensation swelling in his chest like a storm. The woman just stares right back at him, tired, wordless, reminding herself to call Fareeha at the end of all of this.

 

Reyes radios in. He says he's three minutes out, asks them if they’re ready to blow this proverbial popsicle stand. 

 

The two soldiers stare at one another, at the child between them, listen to the way the breath enters and leaves between her half-open teeth. Jack radios back:

 

“Yes. Yes, I’m just about sick of this place. Have an IV ready, will you?”

 

“Yessir,” Gabriel responds, cushioned between the sound of switches being flipped, engines turning, “Saddle up, _chicos_ — home is just around the corner.”

 

* * *

 

Angela doesn't leave Jack’s side the entire trip back, hooking her arms around his neck as he carried her onto the carrier, sitting on his lap as they flew through the dark midnight. Likewise, she doesn't say another word, not even when they ask her to rate her pain from one to ten, nor when Ana comes at her with a needle and warns her gently that the IV may sting. When they offer her food, she looks away.

 

In between her dozes, she grows a fascination with Jack’s hands. Carefully, she takes them in her own grasp, brushing over the bruises, the scrapes, the splinters and the split skin— all received by trying to dig her out. Obviously unhappy, she looks up at him from under his chin, frowning and fretting over the scabs, reaching weakly over Ana who sat in the adjacent seat. 

 

“Yes?” she asked, amused. The girl motions to the little hurts on Jack’s palms. 

 

The man laughed tiredly, smiling despite the exhaustion etched into his bones. “I’m fine, I promise.”

 

Angela ignores him, points to the bandage on her leg— the one Ana had recently changed— and then to Jack’s hands. The woman nods, understanding. She reaches into her coat, rummaging for a bit before bringing out a metal carton of bandaids— the kind painted in neon colors, the ones she usually saves for the younger children.

 

A minute later Ana is helping her dress the cuts, shooting Jack a threatening glare when he opens his mouth to protest. Grudgingly, he lapses into fresh silence. The child in his lap meticulously smooths over the bright bandages, running out the creases as Ana places them on the man’s callouses, the young girl eyeing her work carefully despite her obvious fatigue. The act seemed to calm whatever unease she was still managing to harbor. Soon she drifts off again, hands still wrapped around Jack’s palm as she fades. 

 

Reyes makes his way out from the pilot’s pit, rubbing the glow of the instruments out from under his eyelids. It only takes one look at Morrison— one measly glance at his Hello-Kity bandaided hands, the little girl using his chest as a pillow— for him to break into laughter.

 

“She whipped you right into shape, eh Jack?” he teased, quieting his voice at the harsh hushing of Ana. 

 

Jack tries to tell him otherwise, but the syllables catch in his throat like something dry. “She, ah, she just needed some help getting to sleep,” he says, obviously. Ana and Gabriel share a look, a smile, and say nothing.

 

* * *

 

 

“She doesn't speak often,” Jack tells the woman in white, Angela still cradled in one arm, her leg beginning once more to bleed through the bandages. “I’m not sure if she’ll tell you if something hurts, so just— just, ah, really try to be sure her ribs are alright, and her hips, and… well, just make sure, okay?”

 

The nurse dipped her head, a wheelchair waiting by her side. “Of course, Captain.”

 

Jack seems reluctant to finish. “I’m not sure how much Amari told you about everything, but don’t be surprised when— if she doesn't like to be touched, sometimes, you know?”

 

“We’ll take very good care of her, Mr. Morrison.”

 

“I know, I know you will, but just… she deserves to take it slow for a while is all,” Jack says, Ana standing silently behind him, arms crossed and silent. She watches critically through ebony eyes.

 

Angela still hasn't said a word, but now looks on the brink of breaking her vigil. Her blue orbs stare up at Jack, confused, afraid, hurt; her grip on his jacket tightens with as much strength as she could muster. Obviously, she doesn't want to let go anytime soon.

 

He looks down at her. “You have to go for a bit,” he says, trying to smile. She appears thoroughly alarmed. “The doctors here are going to help you, okay? They’re good people, like us.”

 

This doesn't calm her, not even a little. Her mouth opens and she begins to say something, but its a scratching sound that quickly evolves into a cough, tearing through her like lightning. Ana moves forward, puts a hand to the girl’s forehead. 

 

“Jack,” she says, “She needs to go.”

 

Before he can so much as respond, Angela tries again, succeeding only at one word, one very simple, very crucial question:

 

_“After?”_

 

Jack and Ana exchanged looks, hesitances drifting between them like cigaret smoke, unpleasant and lingering. Because, usually, this question was not under their jurisdiction— they save people, pull them out of war-zones or wreckages, get them to safety and then do it all over again. “ _After”_ is not their jobs. For them, there is only the _now:_ the war, the fighting.

 

“We—“ Ana is cut off by Jack, a voice she does not recognize coming out of the man’s mouth.

 

“We’ll check up on you, yeah?” he says, lowering the child in his arms down into the wheelchair, brushing the bangs away from her eyes. “I’ll try and drop back in a week or so. Two, tops. Don’t worry, I’m not going to disappear.”

 

He didn't know what he was saying then, not really. Didn't know the implications, the foils, the faults. He just knew that when he said it, she had smiled, and the world felt a bit warmer, a bit less cruel, and as the nurse wheeled her away off the carrier, Jack looked down at his hands— colorful and bandaged— and knew he would do yesterday all over if he had to. He’d do it a thousand times, and a thousand more, just so see her bare her teeth like that, soft and strong and white, just to feel her small hands worry over his own.

 

He didn't know what he was saying, and he didn't care. 

 

Even though it was a lie.

 

Because the truth was he wouldn't see Angela in a week, or even two, or three, or four. No. He didn't know it then, watching her go from the mouth of the carrier door, but that was the last glimpse he would get of those azure eyes for a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i’m insecure— comments are appreciated 
> 
> the next chapter will be up when i have the time (frankly, the more people who tell me they have and interest in this story, the more motivated i will be to write it). thanks again, guys !


	2. Lost

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "War was not a pretty thing by any means, but it was a beautiful teacher, and though the years of living and dying and killing, it taught them that there were some things you just didn't get to leave behind. Some things you get to carry with you until you stop walking."
> 
> -
> 
> Jack searches for Angela, Ana worries about Jack, and Gabriel makes a call.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> WOH! That was fast, right??
> 
> i know this is shorter than my last chapter, but i felt like i should stop before the next part of this story. although not originally intended, this is mostly a Jack-centric chapter in terms of POV and character development / dissection. Angela will take over the main focus of this story starting next chapter, but before that i thought it was important to take a crack at how Jack operates under the pressure of war, especially as he comes to terms of how being a soldier means you can't always keep your promises.
> 
> i want to give a shout out to everyone who commented on chapter 1-- especially pratz and dualmode. You guys really help me be less critical of myself and inspire me to keep writing, and for that, I can't thank you enough.
> 
> rock on, guys.

He had come back for her, of course. 

 

Nearly two weeks after he had dropped her off— after three separate engagements with omnic forces, ten new war zones, two newly bombed cities— Jack found his way back to the sanctuary blanketed in sand and white tents, stretching out far into the horizon. Ana had wanted to come, but the fighting had left her exhausted and sickly. After much reluctance on her part and much ordering on Jack’s, she grudgingly agreed to remain behind at base, taking a couple days for herself.

 

Frankly, the place was a mess. 

 

He spent hours walking between the long, pale shelters, seeking out nurses and staff, trying to locate the little girl with nothing but her name _(“Angela”_ ), her basic features _(“Too small to be healthy, pale hair and eyes like you wouldn't believe, a broken leg and a busted lip”)_ , and how long ago she had been brought there _(“One week, six days, and fourteen hours ago, miss”)_. Despite all of this, no one seemed to be able to help him, claiming that they don’t recall seeing such a girl around these parts, that he should probably try to talk to the people up in the admissions office.

 

He did. It shed as much light onto the occasion as a broken flashlight with no batteries. 

 

“Captain, try to understand,” said an older lady with glasses, sitting on the other side of a small desk stacked with a militia of manilla folders, “We facilitate nearly four-hundred documented people a day. Trying to keep precise tags on all of them is… is _difficult_ , to say the least.”

 

Jack puts effort into keeping his voice level, squeezing his hands into painful fists atop his lap. “I’m not asking for _precise_. I’m just asking where the hell she is.”

 

The woman shuffled despondently through some files, the sound of shifting paper floating between the thumping of footsteps from outside the tent, the yelling of children playing in the pathways. “Sir, to be fair, you don't even know her age, or birthday, or even her _last name.”_

 

Narrowing his eyes, Jack lifted a hand and held it less than four feet from the floor. “She’s _this_ high, has bluish eyes, whitish hair, doesn't talk much, and came in with a shattered leg.”

 

“Sir, it’s not that _simple_ —“

 

“I’m not walking away without _something_ , miss. I risked my life getting her here, and I told her I’d come back, and, by God, there were a few moments I wasn't sure if I’d make it between then and now, but I did. I’m here. And I’m not leaving until you at least let me know she’s _alright_.”

 

The admission officer leaned back in her chair, taking off her glasses and rubbing her eyes. She heaved a gentle sigh, tossing the papers back onto her desk with as much enthusiasm as a dying snail. 

 

“I understand your frustration, Captain, I really do. The most I can tell you is that, assuming the surgery went well enough, they probably got her out of here as soon as they could. The frontline is getting too close to this place, and they’ve been trying to get the children relocated first.”

 

Jack folded his fingers together, leaning forward. He knew good and well how close the omnics forces were getting to this region.

 

“Where would they take her?” he asked.

 

The woman huffed quietly, fingers still pinching the bridge of her hooked nose. “I— sir, there are _hundreds_ of places they could have sent her. Do you know how many orphanages have been forced to pop up since the start of this war?”

 

Fire flooded back into Jack’s chest, the taste of smoke and heat. His hands traveled to his hair, tugging hard on his scalp as he struggled to accept the very simple fact that after everything, he was _here_ , and she was _gone_.

 

“Please,” he said, quieter, desperate. “I promised her I would— she doesn't _have_ anyone else. No ID papers for anyone to find her by, no family to find her. Just… just point me in the right direction. Please, just give me _something.”_

 

They stared at each other in silence, the wooden chairs creaking underneath them. The woman placed her glasses back on her face, tucking a strand of mousy hair behind her ear as she braced her elbows on the desk, fixed him with a hard look.

 

“Is there a specific _reason_ you need to find this girl whom you know next to nothing about, Captain?”

 

His mouth opened, brows pressing down hard against the top of his stormy eyes, but the words caught in his throat like barbed wire. His hands dropped to his sides, his gaze focusing behind the woman, distant and distracted. Perhaps, he thinks, he used to know a good answer to that question; something other than _it’s just a feeling_ , something besides _I just need to know._

 

“I just… I told her I wouldn't disappear,” he says quietly.

 

Silence. She sighs something long under her breath, and then begins to sort through the folders filling up the face of her desk. “It isn't good to make promises, is it? Not in your line of work.”

 

Jack stiffens. He wants to tell her that she’s got it all wrong— that despite everything he’s done, everything he’s still yet to do, a promise was still a promise, still something sacred, something he would always be able to keep if he simply tried hard enough. The cords of his throat tighten and lie flat as he prepares to tell the woman all of this.

 

Then he doesn’t.

 

Then he looks at where he is, listens to the cry of someone being wheeled away outside the tent, sputtering out something in a language he can’t understand, smelling the dirt, the grime, the splash of antiseptics. He looks down at his hands, fresh bruises and old callouses. Very suddenly, it all feels heavier.

 

“Maybe,” he says in a tight voice, swallows once, hard. “Maybe.”

 

* * *

 

Ana looks up as the door slid shut behind Jack, perking up from her place on the couch, setting down a book printed in Arabic. 

 

“How'd it go, then?” she asked, leaning forward.

 

She watches as the man throws his hat down onto the counter, goes to lean heavily against the marble railing, his shoulders hunching up as he hangs his head like he simply lost the willpower to keep it up. The way he breathes makes her worry, all slow and deep, like he was gathering himself back together after being taken apart and scattered.

 

“She wasn't there.”

 

Her chest aches in a way that has nothing with sickness. Despite the distinct sensation that she might fall over at any minute, Ana gets to her feet, stepping quietly over to stand beside Jack, resting a gentle hand on his arm. 

 

“What happened?”

 

He looks up at her, steely and tired, notes how the woman’s nose was an angry shade of red, how she braced one of her elbows up against the counter to keep herself balanced. The fighting had clearly gotten to her in its own way. Softening, he leads her to the set of arm chairs in the corner, sits across from her and takes a breath, thinking hard. 

 

“If her surgery went well, she should have gotten relocated to some faculty or orphanage or… I don't know. _They_ didn’t seem to know, and— and, apparently, there are about two-hundred and nineteen places she could be right now, just on this side of the world.” 

 

Ana nods slowly, nose scrunching in distaste but obviously trying to remain positive. “That isn't the worst case, Jack. At least she— at least they got her to somewhere she’d be taken care of, you know? ”

 

Jack hesitated. For a moment, he wonders if he should nod along with her, leave this part of his life here, short and sweet— let Angela live on in his memory as a girl he saved and nothing more.

 

It doesn't take long to scrap that idea completely. He looked up at Ana with that grey-blue gaze and reached into his pocket, taking out a ripped sheet of paper and holding it right before her eyes, right where he is sure she can see it. It takes a moment for the woman to understand what he was showing her— Jack’s handwriting has always left much to be desired in terms of legibility— but once she realizes what she is reading, she can’t help but smile.

 

It was a list. 

 

Numbered _1_ to _219._

 

* * *

 

Europe alone takes three months. 

 

Everywhere Overwatch sent them, they searched— peaking into orphanages as soon their jobs were done, talking in hushed tones to the ones who ran it. In Hungary they hit two institutes a day, in France six, in Germany twelve. In between pushing back as many omnics as they could— during the times where he should have been sleeping, eating, training— Jack rigged a bike he found broken on the side of the street, a jeep rusting in an abandoned garage, a van he decided to borrow from Overwatch’s supply without what some people might call _clearance_ , and he searched. 

 

Ana came as much as she could without jeopardizing those around her; during those days she had been one of the only medics left on reserve. So when she was tied up, Gabriel filled in.

 

“Still not sure why you gotta turn the world wrong-side-up for this girl, Jack’A-Boy.”

 

Jack just kept driving, the windows rolled all the way down, the wind whistling through the old truck. Reyes met the man’s eyes in the rearview mirror, light against dark, blue against black. “I told you: I made a promise. And for Christ’s sake, stop calling me that— you’re not my friggin’ father.”

 

Gabe scoffed, sprawled out against all three backseats, his legs dangling out the window. “With due respect and shit, there are a million kids just like her.”

 

He turns around this time, looks Gabriel right in the face, remembering the small hands that had once brushed over his own, the bruises that bloomed violets against snow white skin. “No,” he says thickly, “There’s not.”

 

Ninety-nine days, eighty-two orphanages, and a couple dozen empty beer bottles later, it was concluded that Europe was a bust.

 

Angela felt just as far away, and despite what felt like endless, unyielding fighting on their part, the frontline had moved deeper into the county. Under the command of the higher-ups, the three of them were being relocated back to The States to combat a rising terrorist group who called themselves Talon. This information came with everything save a bow and gift wrapping.

 

“It’ll be good for you to leave this war behind for a little while, won’t it?” asked the suit in the screen, brushing off invisible dust from his shoulder, smiling as if things were just that simple, as if he had just told them Christmas had come early. Jack knew better, though— they all did. War was not a pretty thing by any means, but it was a beautiful teacher, and though the years of living and dying and killing, it taught them that there were some things you just didn't get to leave behind. Some things you get to carry with you until you stop walking.

 

“We’ll go where we’re needed, sir,” replied Ana evenly. Her, Jack, and Reyes watched as the screen went black.

 

The ride home was heavy. By now Jack’s list was long-stained with rain and cheap wine, about a third of the places scratched off angrily, so aggressively that the pen had torn through the paper in a myriad of places. He held the sheet in his hands, stared down at it in the low lighting of the carrier, tried to not imagine what Angela had been thinking all these weeks.Maybe Ana was right and the girl was being doted on by someone better suited for that kind of thing— a not-quite-family, people who were still able to keep their word. Maybe she was better off without him there. Maybe he was just being selfish.

 

Or maybe she was waiting. Waiting and waiting and waiting, night by night, waking up in the morning and half-expecting him to be there.

 

Jack brushed a finger over the many names left, mouthed the words but put no sound behind them. Not for the first time, he wondered what the hell he thought he was doing there, thinking about a child he barely knew, the bandaids she put on him, how they had made him feel like a feather in a hurricane.

 

* * *

 

It’s dark when they get there. 

 

Jack remains seated when the door drops open, stares out into the horizon, the stacks of buildings and hills painted in dull blues and purples, the little lights not far off. There is a hand on his shoulder, and when he looks up he sees Ana, her hair tangled and matted. She must have been sleeping. 

 

“You’ve got that look to you, Jack,” she murmurs, slinging her duffel over one shoulder, stifling a yawn.

 

“What look?”

 

“Like you’re trying to figure out how to save the world all by yourself.“

 

He scoffs, rubbing his eyes, tucking the list back inside his jacket. “It’s not the world. Not this time.”

 

“Jack.” Ana sits next to him, dark eyes trained like deadly crosshairs. “You did the best you could. She just… she wasn't there.”

 

He nods, hand still holding his face. 

 

She struggles to go on, as if the words just didn't fit right inside her mouth. “It’s— It’s okay to let her go, you know? It’s not like we didn’t… like we didn't _try.”_

 

Jack takes a deep breath, tired, aching. “I don’t know why I— I get that it’s weird for me to be obsessing over this, but she just… it was the way she _looked_ at me, Ana.”

 

“I know.”

 

“And I _promised_ her I’d…”

 

And then, in his own way, he breaks— bends down to brace his elbows against his knees, breathes through the cracks of his fingers and closes his eyes against it all, because he was exhausted, and because he knew that he couldn't search the rest of the world for one little girl and try to win a war at the same time, and because he never thought having to choose between the two would be so hard. Because he knew he was a soldier, and soldiers cannot allow one tree to obfuscate the whole forest. But, he thinks, he’s also just a man— just two hands and whatever was left inside his chest.

 

“I don’t know,” he says, defeated, “I just don't know.

 

Sighing, Ana squeezes his shoulder, brings him into an embrace. Her voice is warm but hard, drawing a clear line, a compromise. “We’ll search America. But if she’s not here, we can’t just steal a jet to Asia; we need to stay and deal with some things— Talon, the tensions about omnics, whatever Vishkar is cooking up behind our backs… If we can’t find her here, Jack, I think it’s a sign to stop looking.”

 

It makes him feel unbalanced, like gravity wasn't so reliable anymore. He struggles to talk around what feels like a fistful of sand stuck in his throat. “Okay.”

 

They exit the ship together. Reyes was waiting at the truck, ready to take them back to base, back to the closest thing the three of them had to a home.

 

* * *

 

America does not take three months to search.

 

It takes six days.

 

* * *

 

It all starts with a phone call— not on Jack’s part, not on Ana’s, but on Gabriel’s. Keeping the company of four a.m., the time the man usually got most of his work done, he rang a place called Southpoint Sanctuary and gave the same spiel he had recited for the last ten people he had talked to that night: _Good evening. My idiot partner is looking for a little girl dispatched from Switzerland a couple months back. Her name is Angela. No, I don't know her last name. No, I don't know her birthday. Yes, really. Her eyes are blue, if that helps._

 

Typically, these calls yielded nothing but a couple apologetic words, or, if he was especially lucky, the harsh _click_ of a phone being hung up. But that tonight he received nothing of the sort. That night, everything changed.

 

“You’re joking,” said the voice on the line, feminine and incredulous.

 

Gabe sighed, stretching out his legs from his place on the couch, his feet pushing up into Ana’s lap. “Nope. Not even a little. Look, thanks anyways—“

 

“No, no, not like that!” interrupted the voice, growing louder. There was the sound of a lamp being switched on, a door being opened. “I just… I didn't think they were being serious— that _she_ was being serious, I just— are _you_ being serious right now? You’re from Overwatch?”

 

A pause, Gabe taking the time to process the stuttering words. “Uh, yes. Yes, I’m— we’re from Overwatch,” he said, elbowing Jack awake harshly, shushing him when he barked out a curse in protest. “Wait, are you saying… Do you know who I’m talking about?”

 

There was a breathy laugh, dazed, disbelieving. “Angela. The one with the bad leg. The one who hardly talks. The one who’s apparently waiting on some Overwatch captain to drop by and check in. _Angela.”_

 

Gabriel was on his feet, clutching the phone to his ear with one hand, the other cupping his forehead as if he were worried he had suddenly sparked a fever.

 

“You’re joking,” he said.

 

Another stunned, distant laugh. “Not even a little.”

 

He looked down at Jack and then Ana, who both suddenly seemed very awake despite the time. Without a word Jack sprung up from his chair, launched himself in the direction of the front door, scrambling for the keys to his car along the way. Ana went after him, throwing on her long coat before disappearing over the threshold and into the night. Gabe just stood there, left with the empty room and the sound of crickets, the sound of someone waiting on the other side of the phone. He cleared his throat, reaching for his jacket.

 

“I, uh, I guess we’re on our way,” he declared, and then hung up. 

 

He barely reaches the car before it starts to pull out of the driveway. Slamming the back door shut behind him, Gabriel doesn't even have time to say a word before Jack presses down on the gas, skidding at the speed of light down the bend, the sound of tires against pavement and the scent of burning rubber.

 

“Jesus, Jack, slow down! You don't even know where we’re going, _tonto!”_

 

The man just stares straight ahead, his knuckles white on the wheel. Ana shot an arm up to grab at the handle on the roof of the car, scrambling to secure her seatbelt, paling when they continue to gain speed. His friend had the look of a man ready mow down armies, ready to break down walls.

 

“How far out are we?” he asked. Reyes brought out his phone and typed in the address, wincing when the driver turned so sharply that he was flung against the door of the car.

 

“T-minus six hours by car, Cap, depending if we get traffic.”

 

“We won’t.”

 

And then Jack put his foot flat to the pedal, racing east towards the horizon of the soon-to-rise-sun, chasing the light they could not see.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it's a bit different and more difficult to write than the last chapter, but what I believe to be necessary. 
> 
> important note: as more chapters come, this story will become much less plot oriented and much more character driven. in other words: if you like angst, fluff, hurt/comfort, do stick around. (also, please don't expect all updates to be this quick-- they should range from anywhere between 1-3 weeks).
> 
> and hey!! if you want to leave me a comment telling me what you liked or what you didn't, or maybe even some suggestions, please do! as i said last chapter, the more people who tell me they have an interest in this story, the more motivated i will be to write it. 
> 
> thank you again, guys.


	3. Found

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Because she is beginning to see things clearly once more, and in the warm morning light of the hallway windows, she sees three figures— three memories, three ghosts she was only half-sure existed anymore outside of her episodes and her foggy dreams.
> 
> At first she thinks she is hallucinating, but no, _no,_ not this time. She’s here, in the orphanage, sporting scraped knees and scabbing palms, and _they’re_ here, saturated in sunlight; in a warm sort of radiance that Angela had forgot existed. However, despite this knowledge— of the fact that this was real, real, real— she still feels like she’s dreaming, like she weighs nothing, like if she’s not careful she’ll drift up and up until she reaches the place where there is no horizon, no down, no forward or back."
> 
> -
> 
> Angela is found.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hey, guys. i wanted to let you know that i'm going through some family issues at the moment, which has heavily affected my ability to write in terms of time and quality. my mental state is not great, and writing in what i consider A+ quality for me is difficult on a good day... regardless, i present you chapter three, hoping that someone out there can get something out of it.
> 
> thank you for everyone who bookmarked last chapter, and shoutout to Coyote+Sly-- thanks for the jumpstart.
> 
> enjoy.

The closet was barely six square feet of space, cluttered with empty buckets, cleaning supplies, three walls and a door. It was a dark, damp place, unheated and smelling strongly of chemicals and dirty mops, the concrete floor stained with bleach and covered in a thin layer dust. Spiderwebs were strung in the corners of the ceiling, some stitching together shelves.

 

Sadly, Angela was fairly familiar with this part of the orphanage.

 

She braced both of her hands against the door, shoving it with all the strength she could muster, clamoring for the handle and jiggling it frantically as she tried to ignore the thick darkness pressing down atop her. Despite her efforts, the door held fast. Her heart sped up inside her chest, lunged against her throat, threatening to spill out her mouth and onto the floor.

 

The voices pushed up against the sound of her pounding on the walls, her little grunts of effort drowned out by the words. 

 

“Someone’s gonna _hear_ her, Ruth,” whined a boy. From under the doorway Angela could see his feet tap nervously, dirty high-tops stuffing against the tile.

 

Ruth scoffed, tone high pitched and painful. “No one’s coming this way for, like, hours. Besides,” she said, kicking the door harshly, making girl inside stumble back into a rack of towels, “S’not like she’s going to _tell_ on us, right, Angie?”

 

Angela’s throat tightened, nose burning with both the urge to cry and the stench of cleaning chemicals. Struggling to her feet, she pounded against the door again, feeling the panic press down into her stomach, trying to shake off the images of red on the rocks, the touch of cold flesh against her own. 

 

It was her fourth time locked in this closet. She knew it was her own fault for straying so far from Ms. Marry— the woman was always quick to Angela’s defense when people like Ruth got testy— but the girl had left her book on her bunk and was growing anxious without it. They had jumped out from behind her, grabbed onto her wrists and ankles, tossed her in the small space and locked the door from the outside, snickering throughout the whole act. 

 

Angela didn't understand the cruelty. Ms. Marry just told her that it was nothing she had done, that Ruth’s group was just bored and thoughtless— that to them, _different_ meant _lesser_.

 

Apparently, Angela was very, very different.

 

“Seriously though,” came a different voice from the other side of the door, an older boy sounding borderline amused, “Ain’t you a little too old to be scared of the dark?”

 

It stung. For a moment, Angela was glad for the door separating them—that the people on the other side couldn't see the terror tugging at her features; the weakness. They fed on that look, frenzied like sharks smelling blood. Wrapping her arms around herself, the girl pressed her back against the door, wishing she was stronger, that the lack of light didn't make her shake, that the stale air didn't make her think of the bodies, that she could handle being in spaces as small as this. None of the other kids were like that— like her. None of them were scared of the dark.

 

Ruth kicked at the door once more. Angela yelped.

 

“Angie? C’mon Angie, don’t be like that,” she pouted, obviously displeased. “Don’t you want out?” 

 

Angela slammed her back against the door once, knowing this game and hating it with every fiber of her being. They knew she didn’t speak. They _knew._

 

Ruth laughed a little, dainty laugh. For a ten-year-old, the girl really knew how to push painful buttons. “Was that a _yes?”_

 

Another shove against the door. Another laugh.

 

“Sorry, I don’t speak _Stupid_.” The whole group chuckled at that, although Angela didn't see how it was funny in the slightest. Her fist tightened, nails cutting into her palms. “So tell me, in English: Do you want out of that closet?”

 

_Yes, yes, yes._

 

She opens her mouth but the syllables stuttered into silence before she could make words of them. For some reason it makes her wince, makes her want to fold into herself so tightly that she’ll disappear. The inky blackness crawls up her skin, makes her lungs crave more oxygen, makes the hair on the back of her neck stand straight and her shoulder blades quiver as she presses hard against the door, listens to it creak under the pressure. Her bad leg begins to ache.

 

“… Guess that’s a _no_ , then,” sighed Ruth. There was the sound of shuffling feet, a few murmurings. “See you after Mr. Pete stops by for the broom, I guess. Have fun in there.”

 

Panicking, Angela turned and slammed her hands against the surface of the door, not wanting to be trapped in that closet until bedtime again, not wanting to slip into another one of her _episodes_ , as Ms. Marry so delicately called it— where the walls got closer, where the air tasted rotten, where the light didn't reach. 

 

By now her nails had carved little crescent-moon marks on her palms, red and angry. She barely felt them. Her blood roared in her ears like an oncoming freight train.

 

“C’mon, guys,” Ruth drawled, drifting down the hallways, “Let’s get out’a—“

 

There was the sound of fast-approaching footsteps, a voice that echoed shrilly off the hall walls, laced with growing anger and condemnation. Angela lifted her head, relief blooming in her ribcage.

 

“Just _what_ are you doing down here?” demanded Ms. Marry, slightly out of breath. 

 

First, there was a pause, shortly thereafter followed by a panicked sort of shuffling among the group of kids— presumably, Angela concluded, a time of glancing at one another for aid, for guidance, for a way out of the position they had just been found in. Once it was decided that none of them had any brighter ideas for such ventures, the quiet was drowned out by a roar of little shoes against the tile, hands shoving one another forward as the children fled like bats before the light, chanting _go, go, go!_

 

Ms. Marry rushed forward, and for a moment Angela thought she intended on chasing the children. However, her footsteps soon slowed, and she reluctantly resorted to yelling, “Ruth Delgado, I _see_ you! Don’t think I don't see you, kid! You and me are going to have words later, understand? _Words!”_

 

“What’s happening?” This voice was male and gruff, and for a moment the girl thinks she had heard it once before, distantly in a dream, perhaps— an echo of an echo. She can’t quite put her finger on it.

 

The door nob jiggles and squeaks as Ms. Marry struggles to jimmy it open. The structure groans in protest, somewhat jammed. “Gah, not again. Angela, are you alright?” 

 

Angela taps frantically on the door, making it clear she wanted out. Usually, she was a very patient, collected child, but this was different— this was something she didn't know how to wait for. The panic makes her queasy.

 

The handle continues to catch, not turning enough to open. “Don’t worry, girl, I’m working on it…”

 

“Let me help.” These words rise and fall with an accent Angela is sure she’s heard before; a feminine voice that makes her think of twilight, of bandages being pressed against her skin. She pushes herself closer to the door, sure she had misheard, sure it was someone else. She didn't dare hope.

 

There is a snapping sound, something like metal breaking against metal. The handle is swiftly forced down, the door finally swinging open, the light pouring into the room like water into a glass. Angela blinks hard as the darkness drains away, the smell of dried blood gone in the wind, her mother’s body out from under her eyelids. Before the door is even open halfway she throws herself across the threshold, scrambling as far from the closet as she can, fighting to breathe properly as her eyes adjust; as she struggles to fully remove herself from that place.

 

For a moment, it’s all white— the sort of glow that blinds, a world of sunlight against snow. 

 

Over the sound of her own heartbeat she hears Ms. Marry gently calling her name, the woman’s careful hand placed on her shoulder. She knows not to touch the girl directly, only the places where the fabric of Angela’s clothes comes between their skin, where there is a sort of shield, something to keep her away from flashbacks.

 

She is saying something else, too. Something Angela does not manage to comprehend. 

 

Because she is beginning to see things clearly once more, and in the warm morning light of the hallway windows, she sees three figures— three memories, three ghosts she was only half-sure existed anymore outside of her episodes and her foggy dreams. 

 

At first she thinks she is hallucinating, but no, _no_ , not this time. She’s here, in the orphanage, sporting scraped knees and scabbing palms, and _they’re_ here, saturated in sunlight; in a warm sort of radiance that Angela had forgot existed. However, despite this knowledge— of the fact that this was real, real, _real_ — she still feels like she’s dreaming, like she weighs nothing, like if she’s not careful she’ll drift up and up until she reaches the place where there is no horizon, no down, no forward or back.

 

She forgot how blue his eyes were. Not like hers— not ice. His are grey and soft and warm and worn, the color of the sky before it rains, the color painted on the walls of her old room. His mouth is open slightly, his hands hovering stiffly at his sides like he needed to put them to use somehow soon or he’d start to go mad. The way he stands makes Angela think his shoes had been glued tight to the floorboards.

 

When the shock fades, she brings herself up to her feet with the help of Ms. Marry, who was quickly dusting off her back. The woman turns to look at the watching trio.

 

“This is your Angela, right?” she says, hopeful.

 

Silence. The figure with dark skin and darker eyes clears his throat, shoving his elbow into the other man’s ribs expectantly.

 

“Jack?”

 

_Jack._

 

His voice drives the tautness from her shoulders, makes her hands uncurl and hang flat, because no, this wasn't a dream; because he came back. He came back. _He came back._

 

“Yes,” he says, managing to unstick one of his feet from the floor, taking a tentative step forward. “That’s— she’s— her.” 

 

The words gather up like a storm at the base of her throat, and she can feel them threatening to burn a hole in her chest. Words like _you’re here_ and _you’re late_ and _I wasn't sure_ and _will you stay a little longer?_

 

But in the end the words choke themselves out, like a fire smothered by too much wood, like _always_. So she says nothing, and she smiles.

 

* * *

 

Jack is afraid to take his eyes off of her— afraid to _blink_ — because he is certain that if he looks away for too long she’ll disappear like smoke all over again.

 

Kneeling down to her level, he returns her small grin with a smile of his own, taking her in all at once, struggling to process everything at the rate he wanted. He notes the little tears in her clothing, the way she seemed just as pale as the day he met her, the way her hair was even lighter now without all the dirt and grime, strands hanging before her eyes and reaching down the back of her neck. She’s still small— too small to be healthy, Jack is sure. For a moment, he wants to ask if she’s been eating, how her leg was, why those kids were bothering her like that. He wants to explain why he took so long to get here, wants to list off every single institute he visited and all the hours he searched, wants to tell her that he didn't mean to lie to her, that the war had gotten to him in its own way, that it wasn't his _fault._

 

Instead, he just says in a voice he’s not sure he recognizes, “I’m sorry it took so long.”

 

Angela tilts her head slightly, shifting her weight between her feet. There is a reluctance being harbored in those eyes, a spark struggling to catch fire. But it fades in seconds, replaced with that same smile as she tentatively reaches forward, tiny hands grabbing for his own. Numbly, he puts his palms forward, lets her examine them like she had all those months ago, brushing a careful finger over the callouses, the sealed-up cuts and little bruises, her lips pressed together in one tight line as she studies every inch with stellar scrutiny. 

 

He just watches her, not knowing what to say, half listening to the bits of conversation carrying on without him.

 

“She doesn't really talk, no,” explained the woman who called herself Marry, standing beside Ana and Gabe. “She has the _ability_ to— sometimes she mumbles German in her sleep, but… I don’t know. She just seems to freeze up whenever she tries in front of anybody.”

 

“What about those pricks putting her in a closet?” demanded Gabriel, crossing his arms and jerking his chin towards the open door. “That happen often?”

 

“Gabe,” Ana warned, glancing to where Angela had rallied at the man’s outburst, momentarily distracted from her work. Looking up at the markswoman, she pointed to Jack’s hands and gave her an approving nod, a look that made Ana’s chest swell. She managed a small smile, visually accounting for the little scrapes and scabs forming on the girl’s knees and elbows, the way she seemed to favor one leg over the other. She’ll take a closer look later, when things are quieter.

 

Marry managed a breath, turning to look towards where the group of kids had ran off. “Angela has… some difficulty fitting in,” she finished, obviously a blanketed statement. 

 

“Doesn’t answer the question,” Gabriel said.

 

Marry rubbed her hands together, glancing towards Jack and Angela and then down the hallway, like she was nervous about being overheard. “Maybe we should find somewhere to talk,” she suggested.

 

Soon after that, the five of them found themselves inside what looked like an office, although the space also could have been confused with a storage room due to the amount of file boxes shoved against the walls. Marry found her seat on the far side of the desk, halfheartedly attempting to clear away the mess atop the surface as Ana and Gabriel took the chairs in front of her. Jack stood tall between them, arms crossed, trailing Angela with unblinking eyes as the girl began to wordlessly drift about the room, picking up a few books and pamphlets, running her eyes over the covers before setting them back down carefully. If Marry minded, she didn't mention it. 

 

“So,” the worker started, leaning forward on her elbows, fixing Jack with a stare, “How are you related to Angela?”

 

Jack snapped his focus away from the child, fixing Marry with an incredulous stare. “What?” he asked, sure he had misheard. 

 

“Angela— you must be her father? Or uncle, perhaps. I can certainly see the resemb—“

 

“I am in no way, shape, or form related to Angela,” he interrupted, holding up his hands, telling himself there was no reason to feel flushed, demanding the red in face flee immediately. “I’m Captain Jack Morrison: The Overwatch officer that helped get her out from a tight spot. With Captain Ana Amari’s and Gabriel Reyes’ aid, of course.”

 

“No, no, I _know_ , but… when I saw how closely you two looked I just… I _assumed_ …” She motioned faintly between where Jack stood and Angela, who was hovering over a stack of papers, her eyes flickering up as the conversation’s tone took a turn. 

 

“I’m not her dad,” Jack eventually managed, arms dropping back down to his sides. “Sorry,” he added, because he felt like it was necessary, for some reason or another— because the silence had stretched out for too long. Angela slowly went back to skimming the files, as if determined to keep herself busy.

 

Marry just shrugged, leaning back in her chair. She was young, Marry— Jack could see it in the roundness of her face, in the fierce, dark orbs that stared out from under thin brows. But now that he could look closely— see her sat still and poised— he can also pick out the strands of grey mixing into her curly hair, a certain sort of age that clung to every word, like she felt foolish for hoping. “Don’t be. It’s my fault for being driven to conclusions, I suppose. It’s just… well, I’m confused, now.”

 

“Why’s that?” Gabriel asked, bracing his cheek against one closed fist, his elbow leaning on the arm of the chair. 

 

“I thought that, ah…” She trailed off, as if hesitant to say the words aloud. Clearing her throat, she asked, “Why exactly are you here, then?”

 

Jack feels four pairs of eyes digging into him, feels his heart do front flips between his ribs. There it is again— the question isn't sure he knows the answer to, the pressure that builds up inside his throat until he opens his mouth and makes a fool of himself.

 

“I promised Angela I’d check on her,” he starts, beginning only with what he knows. “And I promised I do it a lot sooner than this, so… I just wanted to be sure she was here, is all, and that she was…” He ends it there, cuts off the words _happy_ , or _doing alright_ , because he just saw her scramble out of a closet with the fear of God in her eyes. Obviously, things were not _fine._

 

Marry stares at him a moment longer. He gets the feeling she isn't exactly satisfied with his response. Turning, she glances at Angela, who was slowly being persuaded closer to Ana by the woman's gentle encouragement. “Look— Angela is one of the kindest, most intelligent kids to ever come through here. She placed five grades above where she should be. She reads more than I do, mostly things like engineering and medical journals, and not only does she seem to enjoy it, but she _understands_ it. Right, Ange?”

 

Angela, who seemed to have grown mildly uncomfortable at the attention, just shrugs, not making eye contact with the worker. She is now close enough to Ana for the woman to check her over, carefully running her hands down the girl’s arms, noting the little marks on her palms from where her nails had dug into.

 

“It’s one of the most incredible things I’ve ever seen, the way she remembers things. She fixed the AC _twice_ without telling us— we saw it on the security cams and thought it was some prank. I’d give anything to get her into a program. The problem is… well, socially, at least, there are some setbacks.”

 

Ana has pulled out a carton of bandaids— similar to the ones she had helped the girl stick on Jack. “Besides not talking, you mean?” 

 

“Yes. Technically, it’s all confidential, but seeing as you’re the group that kind of brought her in, I’ll just round you up to _immediate family_ for the next five minutes. Angela is a wonderful kid, but she just can’t function in a lot of cases— remotely tight areas, dark rooms or places inside where she can't see windows or doors. She struggles in scenarios we just can’t predict, like if her blankets are too heavy, if she’s left alone too much or too little… sometimes she’s fine, but sometimes she isn’t, you know?”

  
Angela visibly wilts, shoulders drooping as she freezes between Ana’s hands. Marry tries to recover. “We understand it’s not her fault, of course. The staff holds none of it against her. But kids can be cruel, Captain, especially here, and it doesn't help that she’s… different. That she can’t speak for herself and refuses to fight back. And we’re getting more children sent here everyday, and it’ll probably speed up now that the frontline’s torn through a quarter of Europe, and there’s only so _many_ of us to keep an eye on her…” She lets her hands hover just above the desk, fingers sprawled out in a motion of defeat.

 

“Has she been seen by a doctor since she got here?” Ana asks, finishing pressing a blue bandaid over one of Angela’s elbows, covering a little scrape. The girl watches intensely.

 

“A few standard checkups. They’re hesitant to try any medication. She’s not old enough for the most of them, and some of the side effects just aren’t—“

 

“I get it,” Jacks says, because he _does_ , because PTSD was not a sickness and therefore had no cure. He looks down at Angela, watches as Ana pulls up the hem of her too-big shorts, revealing a long, white scar reaching from just below her knee all the way up, deep and ugly and hardly beginning to heal. The air inside his lungs suddenly turns stale. 

 

“She gets around fine,” Marry explains once she sees the tightness in his face, trying to sound reassuring. “Somedays the limp is barely noticeable. How long did you say until it goes away for good, Angela?”

 

Still averting her eyes, the girl held up six fingers, a seventh bent at the knuckle.

 

“Right— six and a half months, she’ll be running circles around me, I’m sure,” the woman stated, and suddenly there was something in Jack’s chest— something that squeezed so tightly that he was certain his heart was now flat, because Marry was implying that more than half a year from now Angela would still be _here:_ Among people who made fun of her weaknesses and locked her in broom closets, apparently gifted in her abilities but having nothing to do with them. After she survived the war, after he saved her, after _everything—_

 

There is something in his chest. Something that makes it difficult to decide if he’s thinking properly.

 

“What program?” he asked, ignoring the suspicious look Gabriel sent his way. “Which one would you recommend for her?”

 

Angela glanced up from Ana’s work, obviously listening to every word, sensing a shift in the room. Marry looked at him, head tilted, eyes knowing. “You can’t personally pay for her schooling, Mr. Morrison— that’s not how this works. It’s unsanctioned.”

 

“Not me,” he stated, chin raised in rebuttal, “Overwatch.”

 

Ana murmured something in Arabic, Gabriel grumbling under his breath in what Jack assumed to be an assortment of English and Spanish tangled ungracefully together. He knew, _technically_ , he wasn't authorized to vouch for Overwatch in scenarios like this. He also didn't care.

 

The woman across the desk stared silently, elbows braced against the desk, hands folded by her chin. She had taken on a certain air to her now— as if she were circling him slowly, looking him up and down from all angles, rummaging through his pockets without so much as raising a finger. There was suspicion in her eyes, a splash of skepticism. But the longer she stared, the looser her features fell, like she had finally managed to peel away some sort of armor; a kind of invisible shell. Jack swallowed, refusing to look away.

 

“Mr. Morrison…” she started, and her voice was not her voice, but rather something older and aging— something _changed_ — like she had seen this all before, like she knew how this would end. “Angela needs an education, and your offering to pay for it is very kind. But do you know what she needs _more_ right now?”

 

His lips parted, the words _a mother_ and _a father_ and _a leg that still works_ and _a house that isn't bombed to bits_ frozen on his tongue. Stiffly, he shakes his head, listens as Marry takes on a quieter voice, like wind through tall grass.

 

“A home, Jack. A real one. Not this place— not these people. A _home.”_

 

He thinks in bursts of static, in slowly constructed thoughts that hardly compute. His mouth opens and then closes and then opens again, his face turning to find Angela looking nearly just as confused, as if Marry had proposed something as ludicrous as setting this place on fire and leaving it to burn.

 

Ana, now finished with administering bandaids, speaks. “We can’t,” she says, ridged and final, and if Jack didn’t know her so well, he would have mistaken the aloofness in her tone for apathy.

 

“Why not?” asked Marry, calm yet challenging.

 

Gabe answers this time, tired, as if he preferred not to be a part of this conversation. “Because we’re not exactly your first draft picks of the season, alright? We’re soldiers. We go out there and do the work no one else wants to, and then, _sometimes_ , we come back. But sometimes we don’t, lady.”

 

“When you’re not _soldiers_ , then,” demanded Marry, voice carrying to the air vents above them, echoing over and over, “When you’re not _out there,_ when the war’s not knocking on your front doors, when the world doesn't need you to save it, for God’s sake— who are you then?”

 

Jack used to know, he thinks. A year ago, maybe two. Now, though, after living with the fighting for so long, so _intimately_ , he isn't so sure. 

 

“… We’re just people trying our bests, miss,” he said, sliding a hand over his forehead, massaging out the creases that had been pressing there since he had walked into the room. When had it gotten so hot in there?

 

Marry nods, makes a short, strained noise that might have been considered a laugh. She extends a thin arm, points a finger to where Angela stood silent and watchful, small frame poised on the edge of hopeful. “That’s all she needs,” the woman said, _promised_ , her hair falling in front of her eyes. “She doesn't need perfect— no one needs _perfect_ , Jack— they just need someone willing to _try.”_

 

Oh, _oh_ , there goes gravity all over again. 

 

Because the thing is— well, he’s not sure _what_ the thing is, exactly, but he knows what he feels _about_ the thing, at least. He understands the tightness and toughness and the trembling in his chest, understands its intentions, its reason for being there. He knows why the words wouldn't come easy, why his lungs couldn't seem to get enough air, why the world tilted sideways every time he glanced down at her and got lost in her own shade of blue, bright and reflecting. 

 

She made him see himself, when he dared to look. She made him want to _try._

 

“Jack.” Ana reached out, brushed one of her hands against the sleeve of his uniform. “Jack, think about this. This isn’t— I _know_ what it’s like to have to worry about someone, okay? To be over there and leave them behind, knowing that they’re counting on you to come back, knowing you might not—“ Her voice breaks, breaks, breaks his heart. That’s not what he wants, he thinks, he _knows._

 

He turns to looks at Gabriel. The man meets his gaze, holds it steady and then shrugs, like it should be obvious. “We shouldn’t…”

 

Jack is about to say something— he’s not sure what, honestly— but then there is a hand brushing his own, not-quite-holding, but there; warm. He looks down. Angela’s mouth is opened, lips parted like she wants to say something but is struggling to remember the words, her ears burning red with the effort. She tries for another quiet moment, but ends up simply nodding at the door, pointing one-by-one to Gabe, Ana, and then Jack himself. Then she gives him a thumb’s up, the corner of her lips lifting a little. 

 

_It’s okay. You can go._

 

Are his feet even on the ground?

 

“We shouldn’t,” he echoes, he knows, knows, _knows;_ because he is not a stupid man, because ignorance has never suited him. Because it was the truth— because there were a hundred reasons not to, a hundred reasons end it here. “We shouldn’t.”

 

And then he leans his head all the way back, lets the fluorescences fill up both eyes, a cold, sterile light that hurts just a little to look at but, for some reason, helps him think clearer. The hand touching his own is nearly too light to feel. 

 

“But do you want to try anyway?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> a lil' dose of angst / fluff. 
> 
> comments are very, very appreciated, as i have seemed to lost the ability to decided whether that entire chapter sucked, was decent, or was actually good.
> 
> thank you again to everyone who bookmarked and gave kudos! it means a lot to know that some people actually enjoy what i write. depending on how this family issue goes, i'll try to have chapter four up in 2-3 weeks.
> 
> cheers.


	4. Homebound

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “How is this funny?” he asks again, laughing, laughing, laughing. Angela smiles, and it’s like a supernova, a dying star, a soon-to-be-blackhole; something that’s beautiful and horrifying and makes you wonder if you’re too close to the event horizon.
> 
> -
> 
> A car ride home. Lena makes an entrance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please read the other set of notes at the end of this. it's important to me.
> 
> a few people have asked why i made Angela unable to properly speak during the past 3 chapters. besides the obvious, literal and implied reasons for this (truma, fear, crippling uncertainty / insecurity on her part), i just wanted to say that it's a very developmental sort of element. if you don't get it or my purpose for writing it in, i hope it becomes a little clearer as more chapters come... feel free to comment your thoughts, or even questions, if you'd like.
> 
> reminder: this is an AU, not a headcanon. please know the difference. this story does not follow the official (and confusing) OW timeline, and ages of characters are, if it wasn't obvious, not cannon :)
> 
> thank you for your support and well wishes. while the family situation i mentioned last chapter is not over, i'm managing to not let it drag me down too far, and i owe a lot of that to you guys.

The last time she was in a car, she had been half-certain she was going to die.

 

It was directly after she had been shipped overseas, wheelchair and all, grouped with hundreds if not thousands of kids just like her; no parents, no place to go home to. They— the ones she figured ran this operation— placed her in the back of a too-small bus with too many people and not enough seatbelts, left her to suffocate between the emergency exit and the swarm of kids trying to squeeze in. There was no air conditioning and no open windows, trapping her in a moving tube of sweat and sour breath, skin against skin, awful and everywhere and _burning_.

 

Thankfully, Jack’s car was nothing like that. For starters, she had an entire seat to herself, her single bag of belongings tucked carefully between her knees, the radio playing some quiet American song she almost found pleasant. 

 

The man sitting next to her was named Gabriel, she had learned. Or Gabe. Whichever she preferred, apparently, which confused her mildly, but she had smiled and nodded regardless when told. Gabriel / Gabe seemed nice, although he had a certain air look to him that, at times, made her nervous— made her feel the need to take a step further back. 

 

On their way out to meet Jack and Ana at the car, she had spotted one of the boys who had pushed her behind the closet door. Without meaning to— she never _means_ to— she froze mid-step, felt the man bump into her not-quite hard enough to send her stumbling. Gabriel / Gabe had looked down, surprised, noticing how her eyes were locked somewhere far away, how her chest rose and fell at a shallow, rapid rate. He followed her line of sight until he saw the kid standing in the distance, smiling something sour. Eyes narrowing, the man just brushed his fingers over the small of her back, coaxing her onwards, never once looking away from the boy, not even as they drew closer. 

 

When they were about to pass him, Gabriel / Gabe stopped. Angela, not, for some reason, wanting to go on without him, forced her legs to be still as well. 

 

(She knew why he was watching — why  _they_ were watching— watching from the cobblestone courtyards and high-up windows— from the shade of the big oak tree— pointing and whispering and _laughing_ at them— _at her_ — at the way she walked funny, at the way she limped, and she knew it shouldn't matter, that she shouldn't _care_ — but she didn’t know how to— she didn't know _why_ she couldn’t just—).

 

“Do you have something to say?” 

 

Gabriel / Gabe’s voice carried a certain sort of chill Angela’s only found in her father’s use-to-be-lab, in foam boxes that billowed out cold smoke when you opened them, dried ice exposed and effervescent. It was not a question. It was a warning.

 

In his tall, broad shadow, the boy turned two shades whiter, struggling to meet the eyes of the older figure. The man’s threatening form blocked out the sun.

 

“N-no,” he said weakly, all former semblance of superiority gone.

 

Gabriel / Gabe gave a deep _hmm_ from somewhere in the back of his throat, as if deciding what to do with this information. “Thought not,” he drawled, the tips of his fingers once more finding the space below her shoulder blades and softly convincing her forward, leaving the boy behind, open-mouthed and pale, like he had been staring down the barrel of a gun.

 

Anyway. The car was nice, and so was Gabe. Gabriel. _Him._

 

Ana was driving, and sometimes she could catch the woman’s eyes in the mirror between the front seats— a flash of dark ebony, the faintest hint of hazel. However, Angela was always the first to look away, not sure what to feel, not sure how to feel it.

 

_Adopted_ was a word she had heard often, but it was something she was hesitant to believe she would ever become. If Ruth was right about anything, adults wanted kids that were as put-together as possible— cute kids, funny kids, kids who still knew how to place syllables together and kids who weren't scared of small spaces or a touch on the shoulder. _Normal_ kids. As reluctant as she was to believe anything that came out of Ruth’s mouth, it made sense. 

 

Nobody wants _damaged_. It was logical.

 

Then again, this entire situation eluded her perception of _logical_ to a rather overwhelming degree.

 

There was a ringing sound— something that tore through the quiet tune floating out of the speakers. Jack shuffled around in the passenger-side, digging a phone from his pocket, putting it to his ear and stating, as if procedure: “This is Morrison.”

 

From the phone came a British voice so loud that even Angela could hear it from the backseat. 

 

“Jack! It’s Oxton! I heard you were back in the States, eh?”

 

Jack, pulling the device further from his ear and wincing silently, replied with a strained but borderline amused sort of tone. “Hey, Lena. Yeah, we got back about a week ago… Sorry I haven't seen you,” he added somewhat hastily, rubbing at his eyes. Angela was faced with the strange, sudden urge to get his attention, make him aware of what damage he could be doing to his pupils, his iris, even, to an extent, his cornea. She opened her mouth, but caught herself before a sound came out between her lips. 

 

“Well, Athena said the three of you lot left at some ungodly hour this mornin’… You workin’ or somethin’? I don’t mean to interrupt.”

 

“Uh.” He met Angela’s eyes in the mirror, apparently conflicted. Unsure, she gave a little wave, worried he expected more. “Not exactly, no.”

 

“Oh. Well, when you gettin’ back? Rein’s cookin’ tonight, and Mei and Hana and Lucio and maybe Satya’ll be there. We’d love to save you all a seat?” the voice offered.

 

“Uh,” Jack said again, turning to face Ana, as if desperate for guidance on how to respond. The woman just gave him a pointed look, as if saying _you’re problem; figure it out_. Angela had the suspicion they weren't exactly on the best terms since the conversation with Ms. Marry. She tried to ignore the guilt festering between her ribs.

 

Jack cleared his throat, loosening his collar. “That would be great, I guess. Thanks.”

 

“Brilliant! I’ll save you three spots, yeah? Oh, and McCree radioed in not long ago— ‘parently he's gonna be late this month. Somethin’ about someone in Hanamura causin’ trouble; you know how he gets. I may go after ‘em if he doesn’t—“

 

“Yeah, hey, Lena?” Jack interrupted, as if he just didn't have the mental capacity to keep up with the conversation, switching ears. “Look, ah… I don’t really know how to say this.”

 

There was a pause on the other line. “How to say what?” she asked timidly.

 

His eyes found Angela’s once more, icy orbs curious and cautionary. She was watching warily with one leg bouncing, like she couldn't stand the stillness. “Just… could you save four spots? At the table?”

 

Another pause. “Oh,” the voice broke in, a little surprised. “Yeah, ‘course I can. Who is it, new recruit?”

 

“Er, no.”

 

“Girlfriend?”  


 

“No!”

 

_“Boy_ friend?”

 

“I physically do not have the strength to do this right now.”

 

Suddenly, as if tired of listening to the seemingly endless conversation, Gabriel shot a hand out, snatched the phone from Jack’s grip and pressed it to his cheek, ignoring the man’s protests and announcing flatly:

 

“Reyes here. Right, so, Morrison signed some papers about an hour ago, and now we’re bringing home a kid named Angela who he might have legally adopted. She’s six. Probably. That’s who the seat’s for. Also, if Rein’s cooking, tell him to take it easy on the parsley? Last time I couldn't get the taste out of my mouth for days.”

 

There was the sound of something crashing on the line. Jack fixed the man with an incredulous stare, whispering harshly, “I was _handling it.”_

 

“Yeah, _that’s_ what that was,” he responded in the same tone.

 

Lena’s voice was dazed, as if she was struggling to put the pieces together. “I— What?” she asked, her voice several octaves higher than before.

 

“Parsley. Tell Reinhardt to—“

 

“No, no, before that,” she interrupted, “Jack adopted a child?”

 

Jack twisted himself in his seat, angling himself closer to the phone, explaining into the speaker, _“We_ adopted a child. Whose name is _Angela._ Who’s sitting right _here.”_

 

“Well, technically, _he_ signed the papers—“

 

“It was a joint decision!”

 

“Yeah, and the Native Americans left willingly—“

 

“That’s completely different!”

 

“Is Ana there? I’d like to talk to Ana, please.”

 

Jack pulled at his hair. “Can we do this at another time? I think it would be appropriate to do this at another—“

 

He was cut off by a noise that, at first, he had trouble identifying. Something like wind chimes singing and the flapping of wings— no, that’s not right. No, it was more like the sound a book makes when in opens, paper brushing against paper, ink-stained and spotted— or like the kind of music that doesn't need lyrics— flutes and strings— leaves coming loose and falling— 

 

It was Angela. She was laughing.

 

Jack felt the words die in his throat, felt the tension leave his limbs nearly instantly, felt his chest swell and then squeeze. The girl was glancing between himself and Gabriel, immediately attempting to stifle the quiet sound once she realized it had silenced all of the others, pressing her lips together and looking down into her lap. But she was still smiling, as if she could see something they couldn’t.

 

“… What?” Jack asked, the syllable just _barely_ held together, something hot rising in his throat. “This is funny?”

 

Angela just shrugged, obviously putting effort into getting the corners of her lips to lie flat. 

 

“How is this _funny?”_ he demands, but, oh no, his voice breaks half way, falls into a fit of laughter, of the air entering and leaving his lungs in harsh bites of breath, his eyes pressing shut and his nose scrunching. 

 

It all hits him at once, a freight train of feeling, of realizing where he was, what he’s done, how he has no idea what was supposed to happen next. He doesn't know the first thing about raising kids! He tried growing a succulent once in his office— something Ana promised was meant to survive in one of the toughest environment out there, something that was supposed to be virtually indestructible— and it died within a week, withered and wrung. And that was a _plant_. And this is a _person_. And _what the hell was he doing?_

 

“How is this funny?” he asks again, laughing, laughing, laughing. Angela smiles, and it’s like a supernova, a dying star, a soon-to-be-blackhole; something that’s beautiful and horrifying and makes you wonder if you’re too close to the event horizon. 

 

Lena is calling his name. Gabriel is looking at him with a mix of concern and curiosity. Ana— was it his imagination, or was Ana on the brink of a grin?

 

Numbly, he reaches for his phone, takes it from Gabriel’s hand and presses it to one ear, his heart fluttering like the firing of a machine gun. He swallows the laughter down and forces his voice to level best he can. “Lena? Look, I don’t know what’s going on, okay? No clue. But Angela is coming home with us, and she’s going to be staying with us for a little while, and that’s what’s happening. And I would really appreciate you saving a seat for her tonight.”

 

The words aren't exactly graceful, but they’re honest to the bone, and right now that’s all he can manage. 

 

Lena doesn't say anything for a moment, and he knows that she is still bubbling with questions— that she’s never been a very patient person. Still, much to his relief, she complies. 

 

“Okay,” she responds faintly.

 

“Alright,” he says back, looking to the open road ahead of them, the passing cars, the slow-moving clouds. Again, he is hit with the sensation that this could all be a dream, that at any moment he’ll blink and be greeted with his bedroom ceiling, his alarm clock reading a too-early time, the wind tousling his drapes through an open window. “Thank you, Lena. We’ll see you in a couple hours.”

 

“Yeah, Jack. See you lot then.”

 

She hung up. The hand holding his phone drops to his side, not bothering to so much as switch off the device. 

 

Angela stares at him through the rearview mirror, her finger drumming silent against one of her knees, a slow, meticulous pace. She was always moving, it seemed.

 

“That was Lena Oxton,” he starts, because he realizes he should probably give her a brief rundown before they get there— Marry had warned him not to overwhelm her, explained how that’s how things usually got messy. “She, ah, she’s Tracer, you know? The one with the blue glowy harness thing?”

 

“The Chronal Accelerator.” Ana’s voice is pointed, shooting Jack a side glance before turning the wheel to exit the freeway. “She’s not stupid. Talk straight with her.”

 

Jack flushed. “I just—“

 

“I know. But she isn't normal, I don't think,” Ana said. When she noted the way Angela had wilted at the comment, she quickly added, “In a good way, sweetie. I mean he doesn't have to dumb it down for you.” 

 

“Anyway,” Jack cleared his throat, “That was her. She’ll probably be one of the first people you’ll meet when we get there, along with Lucio and Hana. They’re the youngest ones we got on active duty.”

 

Angela nodded slowly, still tapping.

 

“They’re very nice, if a bit— ah— loud. ”

 

Another nod, more distracted than the first. The girl had looked down into her lap, the line of her jaw straining and then going slack, over and over. Noticing, Jack twisted himself around to look at her directly, feeling out the words as he said them.

 

“Look, if this— if any of it gets too much, you can tell me, you know? And we can, uh. We can just take a break from it, for a little while.” 

 

Angela glanced, up brows pressing down slightly, as if she was hesitant to take any of it to heart. Eyes once more locking onto her knees, she just shook her head up and down, suddenly very interested in the lining of her shorts, the way the stitching had begun to come undone towards the ends. The smile that had once graced her lips had lapsed into a thin line.

 

Swallowing, Jack turned further, bringing himself a little closer to her— close enough to see the ice chips of her eyes, the little silver scar below her mouth, the half-healed scabs on her elbows. 

 

He needed her to believe him. He needed her to _understand._

 

“I'm serious, okay? This isn't like… like that place,” he struggled, nodding vaguely to the road behind them. “It’s going to be different— _better_. I promise.”

 

He had promised her things before, he knows— he _knows_ — but this time would be different. This time, he would do it right.

 

Angela looked at him. The tapping sound had stopped— and, for a moment, it was as if _time_ had stopped; as if in that forever-long moment it was just her and him and the light pouring through the windows, the both of them staring, blue against blue, ice against a stormy sky. She sat still, fixed him with a calculating sort of consideration, like she was crosschecking everything he had said to see if it added up. 

 

For that internal long speck of time, she didn't seem convinced. 

 

* * *

 

Lena was in the driveway before they even pulled in.

 

She was in casuals, the Chronal Accelerator strapped snug to her chest, her beloved bomber jacket unzipped over a too-large T-shirt that had the Overwatch insignia printed on it. Despite it being an extra-small, the material hung inches from her knees. 

 

The young woman zipped over in a blink of blue light, and from the corner of his eyes Jack could see Angela perk up at the movement, her spine straightening to better watch the approaching figure, her interest peaked at the neon streaks she left behind. 

 

“She does that,” Jack commented, as if it helped.

 

Ana put the vehicle in park, but her hands remained on the wheel for a little while longer, knuckles pronounced and strained, as if she were gathering herself back together from a far away place. She tilts her face slightly towards the passenger-side, regards Jack briefly. For a moment— one glorious, hopeful moment— he is sure she is about to say something.

 

Then she unbuckles herself and exits, sliding out of her seat silently and then reaching to open Angela’s door, greeting the girl with the softest smile she could manage. Jack feels his heart sink. He says nothing.

 

When his door opens, Lena is waiting, her foot drumming impatiently against the gravel of the driveway, hazel eyes fiery and hung with excitement as they struggle to see through the tinted windows. Before he could so much as greet her, she blurts out:  


 

“Is she _here?”_

 

The man stands straight, closes the door behind him. “Yeah, she’s in the back.”

 

He can tell she is about to blink— can see the Accelerator start to heat up as her adrenaline spikes— so he shoots a hand out to grab her shoulder before she can get away from him. Surprised, she glances from the hand holding her back to his face, and there, in smooth, black pool of her pupil, he sees himself. God, when had he gotten so _old?_

 

“Just… take it easy, okay?” he says in a low voice, forcing his fingers to go slack, suppressing urge hold her tighter. “Take it _slow.”_

 

Lena looks at him for awhile longer, brows bent. “‘Course,” she says back, like she would never dream of doing anything different. She is gone from his grip soon after, but instead of blinking to the other side of the car, she walks.

 

Ana is helping the girl put on her backpack, glancing up at the young recruit as she approaches. “Oxton,” she acknowledges, dipping her head kindly.

 

“Hi,” she says, although it is a distracted sort sound, as most of her attention is spent looking down at the girl, eyes fixed. Angela glances her way, looks her briefly head to toe, pausing to scrutinize the hovering blue ring of the machine; the way it highlighted the creases and wrinkles of the woman’s shirt. She doesn't move, allowing Ana to fuss over bandaids coming loose on her arms.

 

“And hello to _you_ , you little thing,” Lena greets, stepping closer and squatting down, staring at the small form as a grin splits her freckled face. “You’re Angela, right?” she asks, ankles popping as her weight shifts. 

 

The girl nods, not taking her eyes off of the harness, as if hypnotized.

 

“Lovely name, that is! I’m Lena Oxton— or Tracer, if you’d like. Pleasure to meet you.” And then, suddenly, she sticks her arm out, as if to shake hands.

 

Angela nearly jumps out of her shoes, backing into Ana so quickly she comes close to tripping over her own two feet, attention ripped away from the Accelerator, something like fear clouding in her eyes as a startled noise escapes from somewhere deep in her throat. Ana looks down at where the tiny girl was now pressed tight against her knees, rigid and waiting, and the woman found her hands hovering gently over her little shoulders. She does not remember placing them there. She does not take them away. 

 

Lena immediately withdraws the extended arm, the smile slipping from her lips. Her brows pinch together briefly, the cords of her throat flexing against her skin for a moment before lying flat once more, a myriad of emotions flickering across her face. It doesn't take long for her school her features again into friendliness, albeit a much more cautious version. 

 

“M’sorry. Didn't mean to frighten you…” Lena promised, glancing up at Ana, looking for guidance. The woman cleared her throat.

 

“Well, that’s alright, right, Angela?” she asked, staring down at where a pair of pale blue eyes were peering up at her, the girl obviously struggling to rein the reaction back in. Ana doesn't want to think about why Angela had expected anything more than an amicable handshake; doesn’t want to remember the way they had found her there in the orphanage, bruised knees and scraped chin.

 

“She just wanted to shake hands, is all, dear.”

 

The girl swallows once, hard, her head nodding up and down slowly, apologetic gaze falling back towards Lena. She smiled something small and barely-there. Ana felt her heart do summersaults regardless.

 

“Right, well, don’t worry about it!” Lena stated, the glow beginning to return to her eyes, “M’pretty jumpy too, you know that? Look, watch this.” 

 

Before Ana could so much as open her mouth, the young woman had stood and zipped off in a trail of lingering light, a bluish glowing wake following her as she blinked large circles around the car. Gabriel barked in surprise when she nearly bumped into him on his way out the back door.

 

The tension that had clung to Angela’s limbs went absolutely slack, her once tight shoulders relaxing as the wariness in her eyes was replaced by interest, lips parting as she watched Lena run laps around them, nearly too swiftly to see.

 

Then, just as suddenly, she stopped, crouching in the same state she had begun in, the fallen leaves swirling gently beneath her. She seemed no less tired than she was when she had started. 

 

“See? Seriously. Can’t stand still, most days.”

 

Without warning, Angela had detached herself from Ana’s side, taking a small step forward to better see the device held against Lena’s chest, head tilting as if trying to figure out what, exactly, she was looking at. The young woman could practically see the gears turning between Angela’s ears, hot and frantic, aggressively curious. 

 

“Cool, isn't it? My friend Winston made it— it helps me control something called chronal disassociation… I can use it to blink forward in time a wee bit, and sometimes back.”

 

Angela nodded, twisting her fingers together by her chest as she studied the design of the Accelerator, the edges of her lips lifting slightly. Lena reached behind her and unbuckled a couple of straps, the harness loosening enough for her to be able to slide it over her head, effectively removing the machine. Slowly, she held it out for Angela to better examine.

 

“Go ahead, s’not gonna break.” 

 

Angela didn't need to be told twice. Carefully, she took another step closer, extending one delicate hand to touch the smooth surface of the invention, taking into account how warm it was, how the energy pulsed through it like a second heartbeat. She ran her fingers over the corners, finding the little panels that she assumed would open into a world of wires and precise micro-engineering, eyes lighting up as she theorized how the device could remain charged for long periods; how such a small thing could escape the firm rule of linear time. Her lips moved silently with her thoughts, struggling to put them in proper order as she ducked her head to look at the underside of the Accelerator, wondering where the power source came from, if its energy was self-sufficient or even synthetically created, if this meant that Einstein’s Law of Relativity was now less a rule and more a guideline for —

 

Without meaning to, her hand brushed Lena’s. Without meaning to, she flinched, her thoughts interrupted, her theories crumbling.

 

There are the bodies, back again, pressing tight against her skin. She closes her eyes once, hard, sees them staring at her with glassy gazes, sees the blood on their cracked skin, their severed limbs, the air in their lungs long-gone. Panic pushes against her throat, and for a second, she’s sure she’ll be sick. Then, with practiced patience, she swallows it back down, opens her eyes and forces herself to keep breathing.

 

Angela backs up, staring at the woman carefully, tucking her hands again against her chest and managing a nod— something she hoped came off as thankful, something she hoped help distract from her slip up. She was painfully aware of Jack staring from the other side of the driveway, of Gabriel pretending not to watch from where he leant on the hood of the car, of Ana hovering just behind her, of her inadequacy in this situation. 

 

_Nobody wants damaged._

 

What was she doing here?

 

Lena smiles, slings the Chronal Accelerator over one shoulder, rubbing at the back of her neck. “I wish I could explain how it works… maybe you could ask Winston when he gets back, though, yeah? You like this sort of stuff?”

 

Angela shook her head, a hard yes. 

 

“… You don’t talk much, do you?’

 

The girl shrugged passively, as if saying _you tell me._

 

“Well,” Lena starts, standing up straight and stretching, “I hear you’re gonna be stayin’ with us, so it’s best you know that I talk too _much_. N’fact, I bet I could go ahead and talk enough for the both of us, if it came down to it. So you go ahead and tell me off if you want me to shut it, yeah?” She grinned a playful grin, a full set of white teeth bared in the sunlight.

 

Before she knew it, Angela felt a little laugh bubble somewhere in her chest, let the giggle part her lips into a smile. She shook her head, because, now that she thought about it, she enjoyed the sound of Lena’s voice, its tempo, its dialect, a rising and falling and rushing sort of noise, unpredictable and full of life, life, _life_. She doubted she would ever wish it gone, even for a little while.

 

Lena beamed at the response, placed her hands on her hips and blew a loose strand of hair from her eyes. “Well, wanna head in, then? I think Lucio’s back from training, finally. Hana shouldn't be far behind.”

 

Jack nodded, coming to stand beside Ana, the tips of his fingers just barely reaching the top of Angela’s head, the texture of messy bangs brushing his calluses. She didn’t mind.

 

“Yeah,” he said staring down towards the awaiting base, not at all prepared for whatever was suppose to come next. “Yeah, let’s do it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am very tired, but I have some things I want to say.
> 
> 1) feel free to skip all of this. it's a free country.  
> 2) this was a very, very difficult chapter for me to write, mainly because very little happens, and i am not great with this sort of dialog. i am not satisfied with it. i know i can do better, but the thing is:  
> 3) i'm okay with this parts of this fic being B-grade writing. this AU was created out of sheer self-indulgence, and i want it to be fun. FUN! not something i stress over while creating, something that makes me self-deprecate because it's not my best work... multi-chapters are hard for me, but i wrote this fic because I thought people would enjoy the concept as much as i did-- because i believed it deserved to be shared. here's the moral of this tangent: do not expect grade-A writing every chapter, because it's not going to happen. i'm learning that about myself and my writing, and i'm learning to be okay with it. I hope my readers are, too.  
> 4) thank you again to everyone who commented / bookmarked. i know this chapter isn't a lot, but if you could still drop me a few words on how you liked it (or suggestions on what to do differently), please know i will read them and appreciated them to the bone.


	5. Reminders

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ana takes her fingers away from her face, inhales deeply. Everything about her turns weary, eyes that wouldn't stay still, arms that were crossed so tightly they nearly shook. From inside the room, Angela emits a muffled giggle.
> 
> Jack steps closer. The height difference between them becomes pronounced. He takes a long breath, staring down at her with a pleading looking swimming in the blue of his eyes.
> 
> “I can't do this alone,” he says to her, very carefully.
> 
> -
> 
> Jack tries to keep it together, Ana comes to terms with the situation, and Gabriel steals some pastries. Also, Lucio is here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i did a thing. a long thing. i hope it's half-decent.
> 
> this one goes out to dualmode (again) for being such a motivator and leaving me long, thoughtful comments that make my week. this chapter would have taken even longer without them.
> 
> a bit of a transition chapter here-- fluff and feels ahead. cheers.

You always hear Lucio before you see him.

 

Today it was a soft song, one of his quieter beats echoing through the halls from hidden speakers, a mix of hip-hop and classical. It pressed up against Jack’s ears as soon as the front door swung open, carrying a fresh sense of familiarity, of surprise nostalgia. It had been months since he had been able to hear any of Lucio’s songs. Before he was deployed for another half-year tour, he used to wake up to them— the trademark tempo of electronic trumpets trading rounds with rouge piano solos, thundering proudly from outside his bedroom door, modern and old, all at the same time.

 

He hadn't realized that he missed them. Hadn't realized how much weight they seemed to remove from his shoulders.

 

Lena strutted out in front of them, leading the way with her Accelerator still slung casually over one shoulder, closely followed by Ana. The two were talking pleasantly, exchanging updates on what was happening on the front lines, how things here at base were holding up.

 

Jack didn't catch much of the conversation. He was too busy focusing on Angela, who fidgeted with the straps to her backpack as she walked beside him, stealing little glances up at the new world around her— the spotted ceiling and the long, pale walls the color of printer paper. The girl’s gaze lingered on the framed pictures hanging from her left and right, the foggy memories of important public events and award ceremonies: There was Ana receiving her Silver Star, Mei shaking hands with a man in a tie, a Roger Revelle Prize held between them, and Hana, of course, clutching her Star Craft trophy from back two years ago, before the war was this bad, before Jack even knew her.

 

Angela is limping worse than before— at least, he thinks. It’s a short, troubling sort of gait, where her bad knee didn't bend right, where she seemed reluctant to open her stride, instead shuffling forward inches at a time, soundless. It made Jack worry, made him want to reach down and brush the bangs from her face, pick her up, set her atop his shoulders. Instead, he curled his fingers into fists, made a note to check in with medical to see if they could do anything for her.

 

Their eyes met. Hesitantly, she pointed up towards the ceiling, confused. Jack looked up, saw nothing.

 

“She means the music,” Gabriel said from his place behind them, his hands tucked deep into his pockets as they walked. For a moment, Jack had forgotten he was there. “If you want to call this computerized, auto-tuned noise  _music_.”

 

Jack felt the flush cover the bridge of his nose, tight and heated. He looked forward pointedly and tried to swallow.

 

The music. The speakers above them. Right. God, communicating with a probably-six-year-old who refused to talk wasn't going to easy, was it?

 

“I don’t know, I don't think it’s that bad,” Jack responded, trying not to sound distracted.

 

“Maybe. But give me honest-to-God strings and drums over this EMP nonsense.”

 

“S’called  _EDM_ , actually,” Lena corrected lightly, turning to look over her shoulder, “Electronic Dance Music? You know?”

 

Gabriel gave her a blank look. Lena cleared her throat and kept walking.

 

“Right,” Jack started, glancing back down at Angela, who had long ago let her eyes fall and rest on her oversized shoes, gripping the strings of her bag harder. With her head ducked like that, she didn't even reach his hip. “Anyways… Lucio makes the music. He’s another agent here— really nice, like Lena. He’s a healer, for the most part; DJing is more of an on-the-side kind of thing. ”

 

Angela perked up at little at this, something firing off in her eyes, pale lips parting as the life seemed to trickled back into her bones. Her chin tilted up at him, interest grabbed. Tentatively, as if worried she'd be wrong, she tapped on one of the bandaids clinging to her collar, brows pressed in question.

 

This time, Gabriel said nothing. Jack interpreted the motion best he could, feeling incredibly inadequate. “Uh— yeah! Stuff like that. He takes care of people, fixes them up, like Ana.”

 

Ana doesn't exactly look back at him, but her nose peeks into view, as if she were playing with the idea. Now, instead of seeing the back of her head and a dark curtain of hair, Jack was greeted with the promise of a profile, the smooth line of her jaw, the angled planes of her desert-tanned cheek. He wishes she would say something— anything— to him. There had been this  _thing_  between them ever since they left the orphanage; some ugly, amorphous wall that made everything harder, that made Jack yearn for how things usually were, where they could understand each other without saying a word.

 

He wasn't sure how much longer he could take the radio silence between them— not here. Not now.

 

The five of them turned the corner, entering one of the main living areas: A room full of crooked tables and couches gathered around a flatscreen— one of Reinhardt’s antique treasures—and a kitchen built into the back wall with an island bar made of marble. The windows were open, the early September breeze whispering through the half-drawn drapes, the afternoon sun glowing golden against off-white walls. There was the smell of old coffee, stale popcorn and soda stains. Playing cards laid sprawled out on one of tables, aces and eights fanned in front of one chair, Jesse’s favorite hand. It was pleasant. Familiar.

 

Lucio was humming on one of the highchairs by the bar, his laptop opened, his back facing them as his head bobbed to whatever tune he was working on. A workout rag was slung over one shoulder. Like Lena, he hadn't seemed to change over the months; his smile was just as contagious as it was on the day Jack had left, his very being pulsing with untamed energy.

 

“Oi, Lucio! Heads up, mate.” The huge headphones Lucio had on masked the sound of their arrival, so Lena took it upon herself to grab his attention.

 

He swiveled in his chair, closing his computer and staring at them with a happily surprised look, a grin splitting his face. His eyes were the color of black tea, wide and awake, crackling with electricity. Dismounting the barstool, he brought the headphones to rest on his neck, held an arm out.

 

“Hey, Captain Jack Sparrow and the crew returns!”

 

Jack smiled lightly, shook the recruit’s hand. “Mr. Correia dos Santos, good to see you.”

 

“You too, Cap. I didn't even hear you all come in,” he admitted with an apologetic laugh.

 

Gabriel scoffed, a lazy grin tugging his lips. “Wonder why,” he drawled, alluding to the music pulsing around them, at times so loud that it shook the tile under their feet.

 

As if only now realizing the music was playing at all, Lucio looked up to the ceiling, called, “Ay, Athena, mind tuning it down sixty percent?”

 

An automated voice rang out, feminine and familiar. “Of course, sir. Reducing audio output now.” The music then quieted, the sound now nothing more than a white noise hanging above them.

 

“Sorry about that, still a bit pumped from the workout… Hana’s still in there, tryin’ to lift something above her body weight. S’pretty adorable.”

 

“Be nice,” Ana chided, although it was in an amused sort of tone that betrayed any real sense of reprimand. “At least she’s putting in the effort.”

 

“M’just playing,” he promised, holding up his hands in mock defense, smiling harder. “What have you guys been doing? Lena said you’ve been here nearly a week, but I haven't seen you around. Mission stuff?”

 

They shared a look.

 

“Some of it, yeah,” Gabriel said. “The suits brought us back to help with this rising operation to the north. The  _Claw_  or whatever.”

 

“Talon,” Ana replied flatly.

 

Gabriel flung his head back, groaning. “Seriously the stupidest name in the history of  _names_ … it translates to  _bird feat.”_

 

“And there’s the  _other thing_ ,” Jack interrupted, giving the two of them a pointed look. “Lena, you didn't tell him?”

 

The young woman shifted her weight. “No. Didn't think it was my place…”

 

“Tell me what?” Lucio asked, glancing between the two of them, brows quirked. “Everything alright?”

 

Jack looked to his side, but Angela was no longer there. Instead, much to his confusion, she stood a couple feet behind him, still fidgeting nervously with the straps to her backpack, eyes downcast. The light from the windows cradled one side of her face in a soft, whitish glow, but besides that, she was swallowed whole in his shadow, everything about the way she stood screaming lost, lost, lost. It wasn't hard to believe that Lucio never noticed her to begin with.

 

He said her name twice before she snapped back into attention, eyes dilating, spine standing straight as she brought herself to face him. He could see her throat tighten as she swallowed.

 

“You okay?” he asked, struck hard by the sudden change of mood. Mentally, he began going over everything that had happened, trying to root out what could have thrown her off, if something he said could have possibly sat with her wrong.

 

But she nodded at the words, even smiled that same, small smile that made his heart flutter from under his ribs. Her fingers abandoned the straps around her shoulders, dropped to her side, flexing gently at intervals. Maybe it was a coping mechanism. He would do the research later.

 

“Could you come here for a second? I wanted to introduce you.” He reached for her slowly, and she gravitated into his touch, let herself be guided like a satellite in orbit. She came to stand next to him once more, their sides brushing.

 

Lucio’s mouth had dropped opened and stayed there, and his arms, usually swaying to music only he could hear or crossed confidently over his chest, had gone limp. It was the first time Jack has seen the recruit at a loss for words.

 

“This is Angela. She’s going to be living here for a while.”

 

Angela brought a hand up, gave a weak wave.

 

“… Hi,” he responded, struggling to get his voice back as he looked between the two of them, dazed and amazed. “Is this— is she your—?”  


 

For the second time that day, Jack felt his ears turn red.

 

“No. We picked her up seven hours ago from a refugee place down south. She’s from Switzerland… from Halden, actually.”

 

A silenced swallowed up the room. Lucio straightened considerably, and from the corner of his eye, Jack could see Lena stiffen, her brows bending down hard, a hand floating up to cover her mouth. At the name of her hometown, Angela had dropped her hand, pressed her lips back into a hard line, like the very word held power she'd rather not play with.

 

Halden was famous, now. Everyone with a holoscreen or smartphone saw the aftermath of the bombings, the rubble, the reports of staggering casualties and pictures of mass graves.

 

“You never said… ” Lena spoke up, her once booming voice going quiet, gaze drifting to rest on the form by his side, eyeing the scar that ran up her skinny leg, the harsh curve of her ribs and chest. Angela withered gently under the attention, unable to help herself as the stillness began slipping from her grasp.

 

Gabriel cut in, tone unchanged, flat and final. “It doesn't matter. What matters is that she’s  _staying_ , right? That’s the moral of the story, sweet and simple.” He broke rank, walked lazily up to the kitchen and popped open the fridge, helping himself. “Plus, I’m starving. I get dragged ‘cross country before the sun was in the frickin’  _sky_ , and Jack doesn't stop for coffee. Or drive-through… mmh, cookies.”

 

With what looked like a decent deal of effort, Lena peeled her attention from Angela, forced her frame to loosen, a smile once more pressing again her lips— granted, not nearly as wide, nor as easy— as she turned to run after Reyes. “Hey, those are for dessert, leave em’ alone!”

 

“Just a _bite—“_

 

“Satya will kill you, you ingrate!”

 

“Now, is that any way to talk to your commanding officer, agent Oxton?”

 

This continued for awhile. Jack heaved a sigh and turned back to face Angela, who was watching the two with reserved intrigue, struggling to meet any of their eyes. One of her hands brushed up against the fabric of his sleeve, the pressure barely noticeable, but there. He didn't know if it was an invitation or an accident.

 

Lucio cleared his throat, bending down to address the girl directly, voice smooth and embracing. “Hey, it’s great to meet you, Angela. I think I have a nephew about your age back in Rio— how old are you?”

 

Jack started speaking, ready to give the same short spiel. “She doesn't really ta—“

 

Angela held up eight fingers, one bent at the knuckle.

 

It takes Jack a moment to get it, the gears turning between his ears at a slow, agonizing pace, steaming and groaning with the effort. He’s never asked her, he realizes. He  _assumed_  he did, somewhere along the line— on the carrier to the refugee camp, as he said goodbye, maybe there at the orphanage— assumed she brushed it off with a quiet stare. But it hits him that he simply forgot.

 

Then, something else slams into him like a moving truck, a bullet to the chest, stealing away the breath from his lungs: Angela is not six. Angela— fifty-pounds-light and hardly-more-than-three-feet-tall- _Angela_ — is over  _seven_.

 

He sees Ana rest a hand on the arm of a couch, lean a little. Their eyes make contact, a brief, shared look, a lasting impression that she was just too  _small_ , that from a medical standpoint, she was underweight to a startling degree.

 

If Lucio was fazed, he hid it well.

 

“Well, Angela, it’s a pleasure. You like music at all?”

 

Hesitantly, the girl shrugged, an undecided smile tugging at her face, not natural, but well-meant. She was trying, Jack noticed— she really was.

 

“Well,” Lucio stated, as if giving a patient a strict diagnoses, reaching up to remove the headphones from around his neck, “Why don't you try this? S’a remix I’ve been tinkering with. I need a professional, unbiased option, an’, trust me, I’m not getting any of those ‘round here. It’d mean a lot.”

 

Angela seemed steadier after that, as if the fact that she now had a chance to do something— to be  _useful_ — gave her confidence. Nodding seriously, she reached out to take the device, but Lucio shook his head.

 

“Here, let me.”

 

Before Jack could say a thing, the young man bent down and slid the headphones on Angela, careful not to pull at her hair, adjusting them to their tightest setting. Despite this, without his hands holding them in place, they would have slid right past her ears and hung limply from the top of her head. The padding covered the better half of her cheeks.

 

Although Angela stiffened, she didn't protest.

 

“Alright,” Lucio started, smiling a reassuring flash of white teeth. “Here goes.”

 

He pressed a button on the side, and the music spilled out, a smooth sort of tempo, a rising and falling and floating that Jack could barely hear from his place beside her.

 

Angela’s mouth crept open, a quiet breath drawing down into her lungs, pooling there for awhile before being allowed back out. Her eyes narrowed and then closed, her hands hovering by her sides, like she didn't quite know what to do with them. Something about the way she stood had changed— still but not stiff; not tapping or tugging or fidgeting, held at rapt attention by the rhythm of the song, studying every cord.

 

Slowly,  _carefully_ , she raised her hands, let her fingertips brush the metal sides of the headphones, centimeters away from Lucio’s grip. She let out a chest full of air, grinned and half-laughed, half-sighed, her little body swaying softly the music ate her whole.

 

Ana had come closer. She stood a breath away from Jack now, staring down at the encounter, letting her shoulder brush against his. She wasn't exactly smiling, but she had taken on a sort of tired amusement that Jack only saw when she had shown him pictures of Fareeha for the first time, her eyes creasing with resolution.

 

“You like it?” she asked.

 

Lucio shook his head, pleased by how Angela had begun to press the headphones tighter to her ears. “Don’t bother. Those are as soundproof as they come. She can’t hear anything else besides what’s playing.”

 

The song ended in a few minutes, but it felt like only a handful of seconds. Lucio had let her hold the headphones by herself, and Angela had gripped the flat, cool surface above the padding hard, even after the music stopped.

 

She looked up at them, still smiling. Then she took the device off and offered it to Jack.

 

“Oh.” He accepted them carefully from her hands, look towards Lucio, as if asking if it was alright. After a quick  _go for it, man_ , he slid the headphones over his ears, adjusting them a bit before hitting the button. Angela didn't look away from him as the rhythm rolled in.

 

It wasn't Lucio’s usual stuff— it was too simple, too quiet, not enough bass-drops per minute to be considered dubstep. It was mellow in a moving sort of way, made him think of sunsets after a long day, warm colors bleeding out over a horizon, strings and the sound of someone not-quite singing. Pleasant. Simple. Intimate.

 

And, he realized, Lucio was right: With the headphones on, the music was all you heard. 

 

“Good stuff,” he commented when the song rode into silence, removing the headphones and handing them back to their owner. However, Angela frowned and shook her head, holding out her hands, asking for them back. When Lucio complied, she took a few steps forward, and this time, offered them to Ana.

 

The woman couldn't seem to help it: She laughed, accepting them with a pleasant  _thank you, dear,_ before switching them on and pressing them to her ears. When it was all said and done, she agreed— it was beautiful.

 

* * *

 

 

In the end, Gabriel won. Cookie crumbs gathered in his short, coffee-colored beard, and Lena had sat herself down at the bar, defeated, sliding the Accelerator back onto her chest.

 

Lucio had promised to show Angela some more of his music later, and even let her hold onto the headphones for the time being, showing her how to hang them from her neck. They were comically large in proportion to her short frame, and it took a moment for her to adjust to the weight.

 

“Dunno what Satya puts in these things,” Gabriel grunted around a mouthful of chocolate chip crumble, “But they taste like heaven.”

 

“Enjoy it while you can,” Lucio called, gliding into the stool next to Lena, “‘Cause she also counted every cookie that came outta that oven, and, after she accuses  _me_ , she’s coming straight for you.”

 

Ana padded closer, Angela trailing after her with Jack close in her wake.

 

“Don't tell me the two of you are still struggling to be civil,” she said, crossing her arms in a fashion that made Lucio shrink down in his seat just a little.

 

“No,” he said, almost shyly.

 

“Last week they got into a fight over how to pronounce ‘ _egg_ ’,” Lena pipped up, buckling the final strap to her harness. Lucio shot her a betrayed glare.

 

“I was just trying to help her with her English! It’s the  _lingua franca_  of the freaking world— she needs to get with the program.”

 

“Mmh.” Ana did not look convinced, but she dropped it, glancing down at where Angela had begun to drift about the kitchen, trailing her fingers lightly over the cool surface of the refrigerator, studying the polaroids pasted to the metal. Since they had left, many pictures and postcards have been added. Subconsciously, Ana drew closer, studying the new images as Jack peered over her shoulder.

 

Angela tilted her head and held out a finger, gently gesturing to one picture way up, well past the top of her head. It was Jesse, dressed in his bulletproof vest and chaps, thumbs hooked into the loops of his pants as he posed for the camera, smiling around a cigar. Before Ana could say anything, Gabriel beat her to it.

 

“Oh, I took that one, didn't I?”

 

He brushes the crumbs from his fingers before pulling the polaroid from the fridge, squinting down at it. Then, remembering, he lowers it so Angela could see.

 

“That there’s Jesse McCree in… what is that, Jack, Cuba?”

 

Jack peeks at the picture, responds, “Mexico. The embassy job. How do you not know these things?”

 

Gabe shrugged, putting the slip of paper back where he found it. “Sorta blurs together after the first hundred missions, doesn't it?”

 

Angela didn't move, eyes flicking between the dozens of dated pictures, noting the postcards from all over the world— New York City, Dubai, Madrid, Beijing, Budapest. There were letters taped here and there, from family or friends or people in between, sighed  _love_  or  _miss you_  or _be safe, honey_  in loopy handwriting. It seemed to confuse her— pen and paper sent with postage was a thing from the past, and seeing such things here felt a little disorienting.

 

Tentatively, she tugged on the edge of one of the lined sheets, stared up at Jack with a quirked brow.

 

He rocked on his heels, tried to find the words. “Those are old. Some people like to put them up… sort of like reminders, you know? Something a bit more personal than pixels on a screen.”

 

“That one’s mine, actually,” Lena said, motioning to the letter with a little flick of her fingers. “From my mum, back in England. She worries. Here, that picture right next to it s’of her, see?”

 

Angela looked, saw the glossy image of an older woman that held an astonishing resemblance to Lena, with unruly brown hair that trailed down bare freckled shoulders, full lips pulled into a laugh. She had an arm around what could only be a younger Lena, who peered out at the camera over brightly colored aviators, her bomber hanging from her shoulders as she held a hand behind her mother's head, sticking two fingers out to give the woman bunny ears.

 

“She’s pretty great, when she’s not going on about remindin’ me to brush my bloody teeth.”

 

Without asking, Angela tugged at the corner of the picture, brought it out from under the magnet that kept it in place. She held it like it was made of the thinnest glass, slowly lowering it to her level, looking down at the details of Lena’s hand bunching against the fabric of her mother’s shirt, the way they fit together like they were born puzzle pieces, their eyes the same hue of hazel.

 

Suddenly, there was a longing in her, a violent flash of grief. Ana saw it, like a fire on the brink of burning the girl down, like chains clapped tight around her ankles, tugging, tearing, weighing on her with every unsaid word. The girl’s mouth fell faintly open, like she wanted— no,  _needed_ — to say something. But then, just a suddenly, her lips pressed shut, teeth squeezing together so tightly that her jawline jutted out, and she nodded, although no one had asked her anything. The picture stayed between her hands for another long moment before she pinned it back by the letter, careful not to let it fall to the floor.

 

She had trouble looking at the fridge after that, so she stood very still, fingered the smooth curve of the headphones around her neck, looking as displaced as she felt.

 

Ana looked at Jack. Jack looked at Ana. They both were in the midst of constructing a sentence— fumbling to find words they knew wouldn't fix anything— when Gabriel reached over the counter, grabbed one of the cookies, and held it out to Angela.

 

She looked up at him. Her eyes were shiny, swimming with glints of hard light. She shook her head slightly, an apologetic rejection.

 

However, this did not dissuade Gabe, who pressed the cookie firmly into her hand, not taking no for an answer. “Just try it,” he said, leaning back against the counter, arms crossed confidently. “Trust me— you’ll thank me later.”

 

Lena and Lucio shared a look. Ana’s mouth was hanging softly open, Jack staring out from behind her shoulder, taken off guard by the sudden sensitivity from the usually blunt, calloused man. Gabriel shot him a look, one that clearly said  _not a word, Morrison._

 

Angela held the pastry between two petite fingers, took a forced, steadying breath. Then she broke off a piece, careful not let the crumbs drop to the floor, and popped it in her mouth. Gabriel showed a grin of satisfaction as her face lit up, eyes widening in surprise.

 

The rest of the cookie was gone before Jack could blink.

 

“See?” Gabe told her, tilting his chin up in victory, “I’m never wrong about desserts,  _chica._ ”

 

“Are you hungry?” Jack asked, because he was beginning to realize how long of a car ride it had been, and that she probably hadn't had breakfast beforehand. He glanced down at his watch, his own stomach beginning to growl.

 

_5:48 pm_. Shit.

 

“There are, like, twenty more cookies in there,” Gabriel offered, going to open the fridge. Before he could get there, Ana placed a firm hand on the surface of the door, keeping it shut tight.

 

Her voice was pointed, dark eyes flashing at the man in warning. “Maybe some  _real_  food, hm?” she said, something paternal beginning to creep back into her tone.

 

Gabriel grunted, looking put-out. “Why you gotta suck the fun out of life?”

 

“No, she’s right, Rein’s on his way. ETA twenty-five,” Lucio interjected, swinging himself off the stool and cracking his knuckles. “M’gonna go see what’s taking Hana so long— she won’t want to miss dinner.”

 

Before he could exit, Angela took a couple steps forward, removing the headphones off from her neck and then offering them up in his direction. He laughed, holding his hands up and saying, “Do me a favor and hold onto those for a bit, alright? I’ll hook you up with playlist tomorrow.”

 

Angela nodded dutifully, clutching them protectively at her chest, and he was gone.

 

After that, Lena suggested a brief tour of the base, bragging that she knew this place top to bottom, inside and out. Angela seemed hesitant at first, but she warmed up at the idea as soon as Jack and Ana offered to come along. She ushered them out of the living room, walking side-by-side with Angela as she listed different parts of the facility, pointing down long hallways and explaining what lied behind the doors lining them. It was obvious she was putting effort into pacing herself— she was, in general, a speedy person who was not fond of waiting, or of taking things slowly. But with Angela, she seemed intent on pausing after every corridor, taking the time to explain.

 

They passed through one of the training areas. It was empty, but Angela still got a kick out of how the target bots seemed to materialize out of thin air with the push of a button. She stared at the control panels, as if trying to dissect it mentally, the tips of her fingers brushing over toggles and levers.

 

“Maybe you can watch me run some courses tomorrow,” Lena suggested, staring down through the observing glass at the fluorescent-lit court, her hands perched on her hips. Angela nodded eagerly, standing on the tips of her toes to look over the controls and down at the arena as well.

 

But the training ground was nothing compared to when they took her through one of the medical facilities.

 

She stopped dead at the doorway, staring out at the shelves stacked with antiseptics and scalpels, stainless-steel sinks with shiny faucet sitting below glass cases of square-cut bandages. When she finally stepped over the threshold, she spent ten minutes meticulously working through every isle, opening up low-set cabinets and peering down into them, not touching anything, as per Jack’s request, but simply studying what they held inside. Every once in a while, she would point to a colorful bottle of disinfectant or fumigant, look up at Ana in silent question.

 

“That’s hydrogen peroxide,” the woman would say, kneeling down, reaching into the storage unit and pulling out a container of clear liquid. “It destroys bacteria in deeper wounds. It’s what I used on your leg, remember?”

 

Angela nodded slowly, peering down at the label, trying to make sense of it. Then she would wander forward to the next set of drawers, open them to reveal a polished set of tongs and tiny metal tweezers held in cylinders of colored alcohol. After that it was stitches, staples, syringes, latex gloves and sutures pressed flat in vacuumed-seal bags.

 

Lena stood by the entrance, watching. “I knew met anyone who  _liked_ doctor’s offices,” she admitted, only half-joking.

 

“The lady we spoke with said she’s very interested in stuff like this. Engineering, too,” Jack said, turning to face her.

 

Angela gave a single nod of confirmation, not looking up from where she was running her eyes over a collection of books, heavy and fine-printed. After a moment of debate, she tugged on Ana’s sleeve, pointed to one of the titles.

 

Ana frowned, squinting. _“A Brief Medical History on the Effects and Byproducts of Necrotic Cells and Tissues within the Living Body:_ Volume Nineteen.”

 

Lena whistled long and low. “Nothing about that sounds  _brief_  to me, eh?” 

 

The book was so heavy that Angela had trouble holding it by herself, but she was determined. She opened it down the middle, peered into the diagrams and illustrations, skimming some of the footnotes and highlighted areas, running a single finger slowly over the text. Ana stayed kneeled beside her, explaining what some of the words meant when prompted, wondering silently how on earth someone her age understood even half of this.

 

Jack came closer, crossed his arms. “You want to read that?” he asked, skeptical.

 

Angela shrugged, not meeting his eyes. 

 

“Because, you know, personally, I’d start with volume one.” He reached onto the shelf, pulled out a book of similar statue, presented it to the girl. She looked down at the hardcover as if she didn't believe he was actually offering it to her, lips pulled back in a stunned, slippery grin. Carefully, she put volume nineteen back, took the book from Jack’s hands and opened it up to the first page, sat down on the floor and began to read.

 

Jack felt laughter bubbling against his throat.

 

“That might take awhile,” Ana said, voice stained with amusement, “Why don't you wait until a little later?”

 

The pale skin under Angela’s eyes flushed red, and she nodded, removing her backpack and slipping the book into it. When she went to stand, she teetered for a moment before finding balance, the sudden addition of weight throwing her off. Ana reached down and took the pack from her shoulders, flashing her a reassuring wink.

 

“Don’t worry. We can leave this in your room.”

 

Jack blinked. “Uh. Right. Room,” he started, clasping his hands together by his chest, thinking. He turned to face Lena. “She needs a room,” he said, smartly.

 

A grin broke out on Lena’s face, and she gave him a thumbs up. “Gotcha covered. This way, please.”

 

Thankfully, the base had a dozen or so dorms that tended to remain empty throughout the year in case of emergencies. They were nothing special— four walls, a dresser, and a bed, but it was better than nothing.

 

“This one’s the nicest, I think,” Lena said when they had arrived at a door, white and metallic, just like all the others. She tapped a button on the wall, and it slid open with a smooth  _whoosh._

 

The walls were pale and a bit painful to look at with the late sun shining so intensely through the single window. There was a small bed pressed against where two walls met, clean covers pulled tight and turned golden in the strong light. Next to the bed was a stand, and there was a chest of drawers by the opposing wall. Everything else was empty.

 

Ana dropped the pack on the dresser, watching Angela survey the new surroundings.

 

“Don’t worry,” Lena said, “We’ll spice it up soon— paint the walls maybe, get a desk or somethin’. And I'm right down the way, so you can just holler if you need anythin’.”

 

Angela nodded, opening up some of the drawers, finding nothing except a few dust bunnies and mothballs. She didn't seem fazed. Turning, she made for the window, squinting through the harsh glare and looking out towards hills of rolling green, a faraway shore. Lena followed.

 

“That’s the Pacific, there. I don't know if you can see it, but all the way out to the horizon, there’s a dock. I like to take a skiff out with Lucio and Hana when it’s warm enough. You ever been on a skiff?”

 

Angela shook her head.

 

“Well, I mean, you’ve been on a  _boat_  right?”

 

Another no.

 

“… Have you seen the ocean before?”

 

Angela turned on her heels, shrugged, went to run her hands over the bed. Lena frowned. She rubbed her hands together, followed the girl with her eyes.

 

“Well, that’s one more thing for us to do, I guess,” she said brightly. “We got the whole beach to ourselves here, and no one uses it often. ‘Bout as nice as it gets. And, you know, Reinhardt— you’ll meet him soon— he knows a guy who knows a guy who’s brother owns a yacht agency, and sometimes he loans ‘em out to us for free. Maybe we can make a call soon, yeah? Last time we went out, Hana brought theses sodas that turned our tongues pink for  _days_ —“

 

Ana placed her hand on Jack’s shoulder. His head swiveled to face her, and she nodded to the threshold, backing up into the hallway. With one last glance to where Angela stood listening, backlit by the early evening sun, he followed the woman out.

 

She stood with her shoulder braced against the other side of the threshold, facing away from the room, arms crossed and lips pursed. One look and Jack knew she was knee-deep in thought. He took a deep breath, hung his hands from his neck and leaned on the wall next to her, taking a moment to pause, processing the past half day, listening to the drowned-out sound of Lena talking. The AC rumbled above them. A fluorescent light flickered at the end of the hall.

 

“She’s going to need clothes,” Ana mumbled, not looking up at him. “And shoes. I’ll grab some of Fareeha’s old stuff before bed, find some things online. We’ll need to take her shopping.”

 

Jack swallowed, staring at her face. “Okay,” he said compliantly.

 

“I’m going to take her in for a medical tomorrow, do some evaluations, physical and mental. And an IQ test— definitely an IQ test.”

 

“I’ll contact Winston about it, see if he can draw one up.”

 

Ana nodded, still staring at her shoes in thought. Jack held out in silence for as long as he could, rocking back on the heels, trying to find patience. But it had been a long day— a long  _week_ — and his well of fortitude was beginning to run dry.

 

“Ana,” he said after a long while, thankful when she finally looked him in the eye. He swallowed, trying to keep steady. “We’re okay, right? You and I? We’re… you’re not mad at me, are you?”

 

She considered him for a hard moment, lips pressed flat, eyes tired. “I was,” she said, just as quietly, bringing up a hand to rub the bridge of her nose. “I was.”

 

“But now?” Jack asked, brows bending together.

 

“I don’t know, Jack. This isn't— I don’t know what to feel.”

 

Jack presses himself harder to the wall, feels it creak under the pressure. His throat swells, restricting the words, making his thoughts dizzy— his head becomes a top that refused to stop spinning. “I couldn't  _leave_  her there,” he says, quiet but not soft.

 

“I know.” Ana takes her fingers away from her face, inhales deeply. Everything about her turns weary, eyes that wouldn't stay still, arms that were crossed so tightly they nearly shook. From inside the room, Angela emits a muffled giggle.

 

Jack steps closer. The height difference between them becomes pronounced. He takes a long breath, staring down at her with a pleading looking swimming in the blue of his eyes.

 

“I can't do this alone,” he says to her, very carefully.

 

There is a small pause, a moment where she holds his gaze with orbs of fire and ice and an aching sort of intensity. But her words are not angry, not loud, not echoing. They’re just… they're  _tired_.

 

“I wasn't exactly the best mother, Jack.”

 

He stares, struggles to find an appropriate response.

 

“No one needs  _perfect_ , remember? She— She just—“

 

His voice cuts off. Frowning, he tries again, trying to recognize the sudden tightness in his chest, the trembling in his throat. His eyes sting, and when he goes to breathe in, the air catches in his lungs, ugly and strained. Ana fixes him with a hard look, because Jack Morrison does not  _cry_ ; not in the presence of burned-down buildings and cut-up corpses, not when his arm snapped in two separate places in the middle of a firefight, not even after what had happened in Paris. He doesn't cry— not before the living.

 

So what the hell was she looking at?

 

“… she’s just so  _small_ , Ana,” he tells her in a breaking voice, doing everything he could to keep his cheeks dry. “She’s so fucking  _small_ , and she doesn't deserve… God, I don't know what the hell I’m doing here, okay? But I know I want— I  _need_  to  _fix this_ , Ana; I need to know I can. But I won’t be able to without you, and Gabe, and… and I just need you on my side for this, please, alright?”

 

His eyes scrunch shut, the heels of his hands pressing against the closed lids. He breathes like an old machine, shuttering with every exhale, trying to self-correct before things got out of hand.

 

Ana long, delicate fingers wrap around his wrists, coaxing them away from his face, holding them tightly. She runs her thumb over his large palms, massaging the tenseness out of them, helping him come back down.

 

“Okay,” she says, shaking her head up and down, not letting go. Her heart rate rises as she says the words aloud. “Alright. Together, then. Like always.”

 

Jack nods slowly, eyes barely open, and then he brings her close to his chest, holds her there for a long time. His voice like an instrument out of tune. “Thank you.”

 

Ana hugs him back, running her hand between his shoulder blades, breathing it all in— the smell of him, of this place, this thing they called a home.

 

“You’re welcome,” she tells him, feels as he reaches out for steadiness, his breath evening out. “Today’s not over, though. Dinner. People. Questions. Are you ready?”

 

“No,” he tells her, obviously.

 

She laughs— not a quiet laugh, but one that echoes in the vents above them, one that breaks open her chest, lets her heart breathe. “Me neither.”

 

They let go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> imma say it once: Jack and Ana will not have a romantic relationship in this fic. i understand how some people may draw conclusions from that last bit, but it was meant to platonic, i promise. they're just war-torn best buds sharing each other's support. cool?
> 
> sorry this took a while-- i was going through a rough patch a week or so ago and actually wrote a separate fic in the middle of the night to help vent (check it out, if you're a fan of Angela and hurt/comfort-- it's titled "Ebb and Flow").
> 
> thank you to the people who have bookmarked, left kudos, and commented-- i promise you that every one of you are appreciated. i said it before, but i'll say it again: I AM NOT GREAT AT MULTICHAPTERS. your support is really helpful and motivating! and hey, if you liked this chapter, or even have some constructed criticism, leave me a few words! i promise to appreciate them to the bone.
> 
> thanks for reading!
> 
> (PS: i had something similar to this [song](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0jjOSg7lW8&list=PL8F1dd_itGTT9UUHRTkx32nDxivulYDof&index=29) in mind for what Lucio shared with Angela. check it out, if you want).


	6. Between Stars

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nodding, Angela swallowed hard and then, after forcing her heart to settle, held out a hand. 
> 
> It shook, but it was a small thing, so slight she was inclined to believe that only she herself could see it. Hana grinned, delighted, and reached out to grasp it. Her fingers were clammy to the touch, her pink-painted nails smooth and long, grazing the back of her hand as she squeezed. The lungs beneath Angela’s ribs filled quickly, holding the air tight, a balloon threatening to pop. The pressure was a distraction from what that touch threatened to bring her back to— three cold nights and a corpse.
> 
> -
> 
> Hana, Rein, and Mei make an entrance. Angela continues to try.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm sorry this took a bit longer to write than the rest. i got into a knife fight with God.
> 
> this is another transition chapter, and i believe a decent part of chapter 7 will be a transition chapter as well. i'm sorry if that isn't really your thing-- but it's important for me to practice with stuff like this, as well as to introduce some new characters in a way that isn't too rushed. by the way, writing from Angela's POV is so hard?? like, what??
> 
> shout out to Fyrelass, whose comment was inspiring and tear-jerking (no, really), to PraetorianLibrarian, who apparently binged all 25.5k words of this in one sitting (holy shit dude) and to dualmode, who, as always, makes up about 2/3rds of my motivation.
> 
> enjoy.

When Angela was guided back into the living room there was a young woman sitting on one of the couches, eyes trained on the flatscreen across from her, a controller clutched deftly between both hands. The television was flickering with lights and colors creating scenes of outer space, stars and far-away planets with rings like Saturn dotting the blackness, a single vessel kicking up smoke and fire as it traversed a vast galaxy. It takes a moment for Angela to recognize this as a video game. She stands there still in the doorway, tilts her head and watches as the woman steers the ship towards a distant sun.

 

Lucio sits beside her, computer open on his lap. He turns to greet them as they walk in, and Angela can’t help but stare as he smiles, a flash of whiteness, a feeling of authenticity. It’s not difficult to reply with a small grin of her own. 

 

“Hey, Hana,” Lena calls, strolling over to rest her hands on the shoulders of the girl holding the controller, shaking them playfully. Hana does not seem to appreciate the gesture, as the motion nearly sent the ship she had been steering into what Angela could only assume was a gaping black hole. Gasping, she hunches forward, jamming her thumbs against the buttons faster than Angela thought possible. The pixilated vessel steadies.

 

“Woh-kay, dude, watch it. I’m, like, forty lightyears to the next checkpoint. Give me a sec.”

 

The voice is high-pitched, like the morning freight trains that used to pass by her old backyard before the sun was up and shining. It’s a fast, focused, and powerful cadence, her eyes the color of copper-stained tracks, glued to the game like crosshairs.

 

Ana makes a _hmm_ sort of noise from the back of her throat, the corners of her lips tilting up as she pads to stand beside the arm of the couch, hands clasped behind her back. “I think forty lightyears can wait until after dinner, yes?” 

 

Hana jumps in her seat, the controller nearly falling to the floor. She fixes Ana with a surprised looked before a smile cuts across her face, big and bold, and the video game is interrupted by a large _PAUSE_ menu as she just about throws herself in the woman’s direction. 

 

“Mama Bear’s _back_ , baby!” she announces proudly, wrapping her arms around Ana in a tight hold, eyes creasing with delight. “Thank God, Satya was an awful den-mother. Seriously. She padlocked the sodas past midnight on weekdays— _padlocked_ , Ana.”

 

Ana laughed gently, hugging the young recruit back. “It’s good to see you too, Hana.”

 

Jack joined them, opening his mouth say a greeting only to be cut off a crushing embrace, Hana’s arms now wrapped around his middle. “Seriously glad you guys aren’t, like, dead,” she says.

 

“Thanks,” Jack laughed, patting her shoulder, “The feeling’s mutual.”

 

Hana disengages and holds him out at arms’ length, and Angela watches as she scans him up and down a few times, eyes critical and creased with curiosity. Then the young woman glances past him, eyeing where his shadow laid sprawled out against the back wall, obviously looking for something. Her voice is stained with euphoria, crackling with excitement. “Where is she? Can I meet her?”

 

“You mean Angela?” Jack asked, looking behind him to where he had last seen the girl standing in the doorway. Empty space greets him, a bare carpet and pale drywall. He blinks once, hard, taking the time to process this fact, and then his features lapse into a tight panic as he comes to the realization she was nowhere to be found. Doing a complete turn-around, Jack calls out, “Uh— Angela?!”

 

“Over here,” Lucio responds, pointing from his place on the couch to where the girl had moved to stand inches from the flatscreen, large eyes fixed up at the frozen picture of a galaxy hued with greens and purples, splattered with stars that sat in thrones of inky blackness. For a moment the sight had captivated her, held her hostage in some trance as she studied the pixels, the outlandish constellations being formed here and there, far from anything she’s ever seen in her own night sky. Then she hears her name laced with alarm and turns quickly to face Jack, tearing herself from that world, worried she had done something wrong.

 

The man sags as the fright flees from his frame, the strained muscles of his neck finding their way flat. His fists uncurl, fingers tingling from how tightly he had been pressing them against his palms, struggling to stifle out the adrenaline that had begun to race through his veins.

 

She was there. In plain sight. 

 

“Oh. Oh, I didn’t… I’m sorry, Ange, I didn't see you,” he says, wishing he hadn't yelled, wondering what had grabbed him so fiercely in that moment of panic. Ana stares at him silently, Lena raising a single brow from where she leaned on the arm of the couch. He clears his throat, holds out a hand.

 

Angela nods, backing away from the screen, fidgeting with the headphones still hung from her neck. She comes to stand by him once more, the tips of his fingers brushing the seams of her sleeve, just barely there, like he wanted to be certain she wouldn't disappear again. Angela doesn't mind.

 

“Oh my God.” 

 

Hana has both of her hands pressed to her face, smearing the lines of her lips, her penciled-in eyebrows. She is staring down at Angela in a way that makes her a little nervous— a mix of disbelief and wild glee, a dazed smile appearing between the cracks of her fingers, a palpable energy beginning to surround her. Angela takes a small step back, Jack’s knee touching the back of her shirt.

 

“Oh my _God_ ,” she says again, managing to remove her hands from her face, bending at the hip to better see the girl. “This is amazing. You actually— this is _amazing_.”

 

Angela tilts her chin. Above her, Jack shifts his weight, as if nervous. “Angela,” he says, “This is Hana Song. She lives here, too. Most of the time, at least.”

 

Nodding, Angela swallowed hard and then, after forcing her heart to settle, held out a hand. 

 

It shook, but it was a small thing, so slight she was inclined to believe that only she herself could see it. Hana grinned, delighted, and reached out to grasp it. Her fingers were clammy to the touch, her pink-painted nails smooth and long, grazing the back of her hand as she squeezed. The lungs beneath Angela’s ribs filled quickly, holding the air tight, a balloon threatening to pop. The pressure was a distraction from what that touch threatened to bring her back to— three cold nights and a corpse. 

 

But when she pulled away, allowed her arm to drop back to her side and the stale breath to escape through her nose, she felt a sensation creep up on her, slow and warm like sunrise. For a long time, she didn't know its name, nor its intentions. Then, after really thinking about it, she recalled feeling it once before; way, way, way back, when she had told her father— her _father_ , the version that was alive and breathing and always forgetting where he put his thick-lensed glasses, who flew kites with her on windy mornings— that she had wanted to do what he did, wanted to wear white gloves and go to bad places and make them good again. She felt it when he stared down at her, his stethoscope in her hands, and he smiled, laughed, ran his long fingers through her hair and told her in rumbling German that he had never met someone so brave. 

 

She _felt_ it, felt it like fire, like the lightshow on New Years.

 

Pride. It was the closest she could come to calling it. Pride that she had held out her hand, pride that she had not ripped it away when Hana had taken it. Pride. Perhaps…

 

“… Angela?”

 

She snapped to attention, not realizing how lost she had gotten between thoughts. Jack was looking at her curiously, a single sandy strand of hair falling into his face.

 

“Hana was talking. Did you hear?”

 

Flushing, Angela shook her head, glancing at the woman with an apologetic smile. Hana just shrugged it off, the grin not slipping from her face. “I was just saying it’s cool to meet you, and I think it’s awesome you’re staying with us! Lucio told me you tried out his some of his new music. I totally helped with some of the vocals, did he tell you?”

 

Again, Angela shook her head, turning to see Lucio and tapping the headphones he had given her in silent question. He laughed a little, rubbing at the back of his neck. “Yeah, she did some of the humming in the background for the song you heard. I tweaked it with a bit of autotune and set it under some white noise. It worked out well, gotta admit.”

 

“Yeah, it did,” Hana agreed, a pleased look settled upon her pretty face. She _was_ pretty, Angela supposed, in that smooth-skinned and dark-haired sort of way, delicate fingers that seemed made for precise practices, high cheekbones that gave her features deep dimension. For a moment, Angela thinks that she’s seen her before, on one of the posters in Zürich, maybe, near the cinema and the arcade. 

 

She glances back over her shoulder, towards the screen full of stars. 

 

Hana must have followed her gaze, a triumphant tone entering her voice. “You play any?” she asks, eyes flashing. Angela shakes her head. 

 

(The first and only time she’s taken part in a video game was when one of her old schoolmates had offered her a controller in between classes, on one of the last normal days of her life. She had taken it tentatively, looked at the makeshift halo-screen they had set up in the hallway. It showed layers of tall trees, dimpled sunlight shining down on a forest floor, the colors bright and hard to look at. Quietly, she asked them what she was supposed to do.

 

“You gotta _wait_ ,” a boy a little older than her had said. So she did, holding the controller unsurely in her hands, watching the fake trees bend in the fake wind, the sound of fake leaves hitting the fake ground, all pixels and play-pretend. Then, something had flashed across the screen: The shape of a man running between the trunks, dressed in bulky cameo. Angela squinted, trying to make sense of it.

 

“There!” someone said, pointing. “Point the cross at him and press the big button, the one by your finger. Yeah, that one— it’s real easy.”

 

Frowning, she fidgeted with the two joysticks, lining up the ‘X’ like she was told. She asked what she was about to do. 

 

_“Win_ ,” he responded. 

 

She had pushed the button, and something loud came out of the speakers, something big and bombastic and echoing, like what her parents watched on the nightly news. The controller vibrated and she dropped it in surprise, listened as it crashed and clattered against the floor, watched as the man on the screen fell over and didn't move. Angela took a step back, horrified.

 

The boy had raced to pick the device up from off the ground, looking annoyed. “Why’d you _do_ that? I think it’s broken, now.”

 

She couldn't talk for a long time, but when she finally found her voice, she asked what she had just done to the man. He gives her a strange look, turning to stare at the screen. 

 

“You shot him. He was a bad guy, so you shot him,” he says, obviously, turning back to fussing over his controller, trying to get it to turn back on. 

 

She didn't want to shoot anyone, she had told him, angry. Why would she ever want to _shoot_ anyone? Her hands were shaking, her head pounding something awful even though she knew it was all fake, fake, fake, oversaturated greens and reds, pixels and pretend and nothing more. 

 

It didn't help. The boy left her standing there in front of the halo-screen, left her staring at the fake body, fake blood spilling out onto fake grass, left her wondering why anyone would ever find pleasure in playing war).

 

So she tells Hana _no_ , and does not feel bad when the woman deflates a little after doing so.

 

“Oh,” she says, a little disappointed. “Well, I’m playing _The Space Between Stars_ — the beta of it, anyway. I got first access. It’s really fun, and the soundtrack’s seriously sick. You know, if you wanted to take a closer look or anything, you can totally try it out.

 

Angela hesitated, looking between Hana and the screen. It didn't _look_ like a war game, she thought, fidgeting with her hands, weighing her odds. She found Ana’s eyes, remembering what she said about waiting until after dinner. 

 

Ana shrugged, heaving a little sigh. “Reinhardt’s not here yet. A few minutes would be fine, I’m sure. Plus, I should probably go after Gabe and make sure he hasn't fallen into a sugar induced coma… how many of those cookies did he eat?”

 

“Fourteen. He raided the fridge again when you guys left for the tour,” Lucio responded. Ana muttered something in Arabic, turning to head for the door.

 

Hana had launched herself back onto the couch before Ana had even finished speaking, reaching for the controller and waving Angela over. 

 

“Alright,” she started, adjusting some of the settings, “So I’m just turning the sensitivity down for you, but it’s a really easy game, okay? All you’re doing right now is steering your ship towards B-06, which is that greenish star, there. But you gotta watch out for these asteroids and gas clouds— they slow you down and deplete your oxygen. You’re supposed to make it there before you run out of fuel and O2, which are the bars in the corner.”

 

Angela hoisted herself onto the couch, claiming the space between Lucio and Hana as her own. She nodded at the instructions. 

 

“You have a laser cannon you can use to break up the asteroids if you don't wanna dodge them. But that has fuel, too, so you don't want to be using it if you can’t help it,” Hana said, leaning over to show her the controller. “Use this nob to turn, and this one to go forward. The yellow button’s for the laser. Cool?” 

 

The controller was blue and pink and white, and Angela had to strain to get her fingers to reach some of the buttons. Her mind was working hard to compute everything she had been told— she wondered why the oxygen was limited, and if the vessel was supposed to move faster than the speed of light, like Lena’s Accelerator. It would need to if Hana really wanted to cover forty lightyears in a reasonable time. But, if something was going faster than one hundred and eighty-six thousand miles-per-second, wouldn't time slow down, according to the Law of Relativity? 

 

Before she could ponder this any further, Hana pressed the middle button and the screen unfroze, the spaceship now under Angela’s jurisdiction coming to life with the soft rumbling of an engine and the faint _whoosh_ ing of passing debris. She used the nobs meant for turning and acceleration very carefully, reluctant to pick up too much speed before she had an idea of what she was doing. The vessel was sluggish in movement, and it took a moment for her to adjust.

 

Jack stood behind her, hands on the back of the couch. She looked up at him once before returning her attention to the flatscreen, suddenly determined to do well.

 

Hana applauded passionately as she pushed the ship faster, found that steering was a little easier once you were at a certain speed. The stars flew past in straight white lines.

 

“Okay, right, so you’re doing really good,” she said, stretching out an arm to point towards the corner, “But get ready to dodge, because these things come at you really freaking fas—“

 

Something came crashing into the ship, and Angela gasped as it spun wildly from the impact, one of its wings now billowing smoke. The controller in her hands vibrated viciously. She shrunk deeper into the couch.

 

“Woh-kay, alright, that’s fine, dude,” Hana promised, bending closer. “Don’t worry, you still got a few hits left, see? You’re just getting used to it.”

 

Reluctantly, the girl nodded, fiddling with the controls until the ship was once again up and moving. She leaned forward, biting her bottom lip in focus, trying to anticipate where the next projectile would come from. Her heart throbbed in her ears.

 

“Watch it,” Jack says suddenly, and she sees a dark form hurtling towards the vessel, a trail of debris in its wake. She forced the pixilated craft left so hard that she found herself accidentally leaning into Lucio, nearly knocking the computer on his lap to the floor. The meteor missed her by a hair.

 

“Nice!” Hana cheers, grinning a full set of teeth. Angela doesn't respond, finding herself too absorbed in the gameplay to spare the brainpower. She dodges another asteroid, weaves around what she is told it a wormhole, wonders silently what lay inside it. The music picked up, violins and drums pulsing through the surround sound speakers, sometimes so loud that it shook the couch.

 

The stars stretch out into blurs once more as she gains speed, and Lena, who had cannonballed onto the couch soon after Angela had begun playing, admits, “Honestly, you're doin’ better than I did the first time.”

 

“She’s a _natural_ ,” Hana declares, crossing her arms as if, now that she said so, an argument could not be made otherwise. “I can tell. I got an _eye_ for these kinds of th—“

 

She was interrupted by Angela squeaking in surprise as the ship was once again struck, this time so shocked that the controller tumbled from her hands, bounced once on the couch, and then crash-landed onto the floor. While she scrambled to reach for it, another rocky form buried itself into the ship, and this time the vessel groaned deep and loud with the sound of metal straining and coming undone before exploding in a burst of broken parts. The sound made Angela jump, and she looked up to watch as the pieces drifted away from one another.

 

“Ay, bad luck,” Lucio sympathized as the words _MISSION FAILED_ appeared on the center of the screen.

 

“ _Yeah_ , dude,” agreed Hana, talking with her hands more than her mouth, “You were, like, half way there. Seriously thought you were gonna make it to the checkpoint— that would have been insane. I’ve been working on this for the whole _day_ ; imagine if you had…”

 

She must have realized Angela wasn't quite listening, because her voice died before she could finish the sentence, fading into silence like the last rays of sunlight pushed down under the horizon.

 

The girl couldn't look away from the screen.

 

Hana’s controller stayed clutched in both hands, frigid eyes fixed upon the wreck as if they were glued there, lips parted gently and brows bending to press together. Swallowing became difficult. 

 

“… What?” Hana asked bluntly, looking at the dismembered ship. Jack leaned forward, and Angela could feel the spine of the couch bend under the weight, hear him breathing quietly from somewhere above her.

 

“There’s nothing to worry about, dude. Here, look.” 

 

And with that, Hana took the controller from her hands and jammed a button under her thumb. The screen sunk into whiteness so bright that Angela found herself squinting, and when she could see properly again, the ship was there, perfect and pristine, engine growling powerfully beneath its hull like some beast back from the dead. The word _RESTART?_ appeared in the middle of the display, framed by stars.

 

_“Infinite lives_ , baby,” Hana rejoiced, reaching to offer the controls back to Angela, who looked mildly surprised. “I mean, you gotta go back a ways, but it’s cool. Here, you can try again, if you want.”

 

The girl looked down at the controller, took it carefully into her hands. Then she glanced up at Jack, leaning her head all the way back to see him hovering there, and held it out to him. He paled a little bit, clearing his throat before laughing nervously.

 

“Ah, thanks, Angela. But I’m not really into… this.”

 

“‘Cause you’re a boring old grandpa who yearns for _The Good Ol’ Days,_ ” Hana drawled, flashing him a testy smirk.

 

Jack huffed, unable to keep his eyes from rolling. “I’m only thirty-seven, Hana.”

 

“What was it like to fight off the dinosaurs?” Lana asked innocently, staring up at the man with blinking brown eyes. “Or did they confuse you as one of their own?”

 

“Three seven. Seriously.”

 

“Did you help discover fire?” Lucio chimed in, and it was enough for Angela to let loose a soft laugh— the sort that made her nose crinkle and conjured lines below her ice-blue eyes.

 

Jack tilted his head up, rubbed away the wrinkles pressing between his brows. 

 

“This was hardly funny the first hundred times,” he mumbles into his hands, but Angela saw the white of a smile through the gaps between his fingers, saw it gleaming there in the stark light of the glowing screen. He looked at home here, she realizes. Rooted.

 

After a moment, his arms went limp and hung by his sides, and he looked down at her, defeated. 

 

“Give me the controller.”

 

* * *

 

When Reinhardt and Mei-Ling arrived, they found them huddled there— Lucio, Angela, Hana, and Jack lined up on the couch, Lena leaning in close from a nearby armchair— all but absorbed in a world of asteroids and unfamiliar constellations. 

 

Jack had not lasted a minute on his first turn, and Angela would be lying if she said that this didn't make her feel better about her own attempt to reach B-06. After the ship once again exploded into charred slabs and burnt metal, he had deflated just a little, lips pressed into an unsatisfied line. Angela found herself reaching up to pat him on the shoulder, pleased when the gesture seemed to smooth out his features. Hana had demanded a turn after that, and then—only after nearly reaching the checkpoint only to be hit by three high-speed projectiles at once— had relinquished the controller to Lucio. 

 

Lena was maneuvering the ship, encouraged forward by Lucio and Hana’s frantic shouts of _watch out!_ or _nice move_ or _check yourself before you wreck yourself, scrub_ — which, frankly, Angela didn't quite understand, but found amusement in nonetheless— when a large, booming voice had been released into the room, like a stroke of heavy thunder falling from the clouds. 

 

“I hear that the Suits sent back a few old dogs from the racetracks, eh?” 

 

Jack stood, turned to face the origin of the voice with a weathered grin gracing his face, his eyes carved into content slants. 

 

“Why is everyone calling me _old_ today, Rein?” he asked, stepping forward to clasps the hand of a man who, to Angela, seemed impossibly large— his biceps were thicker than her entirety, the knuckles of his long, hard hands popping out powerfully as he shook with Jack.

 

“ _Old_?” The one he called Reinhardt had scoffed, throwing his head back and laughing long and large and loud, “You hit forty and then come talk to me about old, _kapitän_.”

 

He was a German man, thick-worded and tankishly-built, whose salt-and-pepper hair was just beginning to go grey with age. One of his bushy brows was split straight down the middle with a scar that turned the eye underneath a milky white, and in the tight-fitted shirt he wore, Angela could see numerous more white lines marking his arms, his legs, one curving up the back of his jaw. He was the archetype of war-torn; of weathered. 

 

But he smiled. Smiled like he was the luckiest man in the world to be standing there, like he wouldn't have it any other way.

 

Next to him stood a woman who was considerably shorter, with mousy brown hair held in a precariously pinned bun that seemed ready to come undone at any moment. Her button nose wrinkled when she grinned, dimples pressing into both pale cheeks. 

 

“It is great to see you, Jack,” she said, voice stained with a mandarin accent. The two of them hugged briefly.

 

“You, too. How are things in Antartica?”

 

The woman just shrugged, laughing nervously. “Cold. But progressing, thankfully. The base should be up and running within the year!”

 

“That’s amazing,” Jack commended, dipping his head in satisfaction, “You’ll have to catch me up later, and we can work on deploying agents as soon as possible.”

 

“This Eco-Watchpoint is looking _great_ , Jack— you’re going to love it. We managed to use some of Satya’s hardlight tech to improve efficiency with heating and cooling, so we’re already saving at least nineteen percent on nuclear energy. _Nineteen percent_ , Jack!” 

 

“I knew I left this in the right hands,” he said, clasping her shoulder once, “If Mei-Ling can’t do it, no one can.”

 

The woman flushes, reaching up to fiddle with the frames of her glasses. “Well, I am not sure about _that_ ,” she said with that same nervous laugh, “But I am glad to be of assistance.”

 

Angela watched the interaction carefully, eyes peeking out from the back of the couch, fingers reaching to hold onto the cushions by her chin. The game had been paused, Lena leaving her seat to greet the two newcomers, Lucio floating easily in her wake. Hana glances over her shoulder before standing up and stretching, grumbling something in a language that Angela could not understand.

 

Then Reinhardt turns his head mid-laugh to find her there, his scared face angled right at where she was watching cautiously through her messy bangs, both his brows rising in surprise. He gives her a startled look that makes her duck back down, her breath catching in her throat.

 

“Jack,” he says, nudging him softly, his voice a level lower. “Who is this?”

 

Jack turns towards the indicated direction, sees a tuff of blond-white hair peeking out from the top of the couch. He stands a little taller, takes his hands out from his pockets.

 

“Ah. That’s Angela,” he says lightly, like he was simply commenting on the weather outside, like if he didn't make it _sound_ like a big deal, it wouldn't be. “We were playing one of Hana’s games.”

 

“‘Angela’?" Mei asks.

 

“Angela,” Jack confirms. “Come say hi.”

 

She heard the sound of footsteps, felt as her heart got pushed up into her throat, as her lungs seemed to shrivel in her chest. Consciously, she took a deep breath, forcing her nails to stop digging into the flesh of her palm, telling herself that, at this point, the anxiety was unwarranted. Jack, Ana, Gabriel, Lena, Lucio, Hana…. all have been nothing but pleasant, if a little unconventional. There was no reason for her to feel this way— no logic to it, no merit. She forces her limbs into a cage of stillness, demands herself to g _et over it._

 

She blinks hard and, upon opening her eyes, is faced suddenly with the two strangers, Jack posing in between. He points down at her with both hands, as if proving a point. 

 

“Angela,” he states simply.

 

She waves.

 

While Mei seems mildly taken aback by her presence, the large man beside her broke into another toothy grin, bringing a hand up to scratch at his bearded chin. 

 

“Well hello, there,” he says in that same booming voice, so loud that Angela couldn't help but push harder against the back of the couch, her ears ringing in protest. “And where did you come from, little bird? I didn't know we recruited so young!” He puts both hands on his hips, shoots Jack a joking grin. 

 

Hana pipes up from where she had been twisting her hair into a ponytail, reaching over to shut off the large screen, the starry image swallowed up into a breath of blackness. “Didn’t you get my text? I texted you about this. Where’s your phone?”

 

Reinhardt pales a little, bringing up a hand to rub at the back of his neck, suddenly unable to meet any of their eyes. He laughs nervously. Mei sighs.

 

“He broke it,” she admits, shrinking a little when the man sends her a betrayed glare.

 

“He _broke_ it?” Lena says, bewildered. “Another one? _Again?”_

 

Reinhardt swings his hands in wild gestures, obviously flustered, his hard voice lined with defense. “The buttons are so _small!_ The screen is so _thin!”_

 

“What are we on, number four?”

 

Lucio takes out his phone, checks something. “Nah, five,” he says, “you’re forgetting about the one during football season.”

 

Lena shivers.

 

“Honest mistakes, all of them!” Reinhardt demands, crossing his powerful arms across his chest, effectively put-out. “Why don’t you just _tell_ me what’s going on instead of communicating through technology. I live here. You live here. We live here!”

 

Hana scoffs. “I was _trying_ to give you guys a heads-up that Cap’n Jack here adopted a kid, so you wouldn't be flabbergasted when you back. Like, common courtesy or whatever. But, you know what, this works, too.”

 

Mei makes a series of expressions that, perhaps in another position, Angela would have found amusing: First a frown of confusion, followed by her lips cracking open— as if, for a moment, she intended on saying something— only to lapse back into a state of stunned silence, tapping the tips of her fingers together near her chest. She seems sure she had misheard, but was apparently reluctant to ask for Hana to repeat herself.

 

On the other hand, Reinhardt appears to have lost the ability to, as Lena had so articulately put it, _shut up._  

 

He looked frantically between from where Angela sat patiently on the couch to where Jack stood beside him, his expression lost somewhere between the shores of shocked and dazed. _“‘Adopted’?”_ he echoes, nearly nothing more than a wheeze.

 

Jack clasps his hands together before him, as if trying to draw forth the resolution. “Yes,” he says. “Sort of. Yes. I didn't really read the fine print, but I— she’s— Angela’s going to be staying with us.”

 

Hana drapes herself over the back of the couch, like a towel left out to dry. She blows a single strand of hair from her face. “Cool, right?” 

 

“ _Mein Gott_. Jack, _mein Gott_.” Reinhardt turns to take him by the shoulders, suddenly smiling. It’s nice to hear him speak German, Angela thinks. She hasn't heard German since her mother, since that early morning with the sirens and the screaming and the shaking of the ground. It’s a familiar way of sound, warm and welcoming to her ears. She mouths the words, remembers the taste of rough syllables on her tongue. 

 

“You’re a _father!_ ” he states, excited.

 

Jack freezes, the words lodged in his throat, reluctant to come loose. Angela watches him as he holds up both pointer fingers, as if pleading for a moment to speak, the red rising to his cheeks.

 

“No,” he struggles to say, finding himself tripping over the words, “No, it’s not like— she needed a place to stay, you know, and folks to look after her, and someone to pay for schooling, so I just— _we_ just—“

 

“Am I the uncle then?” he asks, apparently not listening to the argument spilling out of Jack’s mouth, rushed and messy. “Or grandfather? I could be the grandfather!”

 

He looks nothing like her grandfather, Angela thinks. Her grandfather was a sickly man with watery eyes and small, delicately-boned hands made for turning pages and chess. Not some mountain of muscle and masculinity, a soldier who took up so much space in a single room, whose voice was like a volt of thunder, whose smile was wide enough to reach both eyes. 

 

“I call being the wicked cool sister, then” Hana adds, perhaps joking.

 

Angela’s never had a sister.

 

“Rein,” Mei had started, resting a gentle hand on his arm, voice nervous but firm. “We’re not playing house. Calm down.”

 

“I’m calm,” he protests, releasing Jack. “I’m _calm_. I just— he just…” He fades into quiet, faces Angela.

 

They look at each other a long time. She finds her fingers drumming silently on one knee, hears her heart in her ears, feels a dull pulsing in her throat. She doesn't know what to do— doesn't know how to feel— doesn't know what they expect from her. For a moment she gets lost in the rough marks etched into his skin, the scars and scrapes, most faded and white and whispering of wartimes, of things she’s seen on the news, images of men and woman and omnics dressed in artillery and ash. She wants to reach out and touch them, trace them with her fingertips, make them go away.

 

“Hi,” he says, a little breathless. The roughness leaves him for a moment. Angela dips her head and doesn't look away.

 

“I apologize if I am loud and excitable. I lose track of myself, sometimes.”

 

Angela nods.

 

He pauses, as if he was waiting for her to speak, and she fidgets with a hole in her shorts, searching for the confidence. It’s only _words_ , she thinks. She knows the hemispheres of the brain, the equation for the speed of light, how molecules fall apart and then come back together— she can manage a sentence or two, can’t she?

 

Mei takes a step forward, managing a grin. She strikes Angela as the kind of woman who is good with green and thriving things— there are gloves meant for gardening tucked under her belt, and her boots are stained with what looks like soil and earth. 

 

“Hello. I’m Mei-Ling— you can call me Mei, though. This is Reinhardt Wilhelm. Nice to meet you.”

 

Again, Angela nods.

 

She nurses the words between her lips, feels them grow there, but it’s too much, too much, too much. Berating herself, she tries anyways, ignoring how her heart sped up and throbbed against her chest, ignoring how the room suddenly dimmed, like the light was dying, like the walls were growing closer. Her teeth set, jaw straining. She feels the familiar pressure of her nails invading the skin of her palm, a sort of anchor, and she hates it, wishes it would just leave her alone, just for a moment.

 

Jack must have seen the distraught written across her face, the tightness of her throat, the struggle in her eyes, because suddenly he’s there, closer, saying, “Angela doesn't talk much as of late.”

 

Reinhardt lifts a brow, surprised. “No?”

 

“No,” he says evenly, taking a seat beside her. “We don't think she can really help it. Is that right, Ange?”

 

She sends him a sideways glance, shakes her head slowly. _It’s like a pressure_ , she wants to say, _It’s like the sound gets trapped and tangled. I don't know how to fix it. I want to fix it. I’m trying to fix it._

 

Something goes off, an alarm of sorts. Angela snaps to attention, looks as Reinhardt lifts his watch to his face, pressing the nob on its side. The sound cuts off.

 

“That would be the timer for the smoked ham,” he announces, standing straighter. “This’ll have to wait a moment— Hana, the table, please.”

 

“Why me?” she groaned, still hunched over the spine of the couch.

 

“It’s your turn. Lena has dishes. Make sure to get out the steak knives.”

 

The young woman groans again before detaching herself from where she laid, shuffling over to the kitchen, opening up some drawers and shelves. Lucio slips away, presumably to help. 

 

“I have questions,” Reinhardt states, looking again between Angela and Jack, a playful gleam in the grey of his good eye. “And they would go well with dinner.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, confession time: i didn't really get into a knife fight with God. i'm on this medication that sort of makes it hard for me to concentrate on one thing for a long time, which is partially why this took so long and why the quality of it might not be up to par. but i posted it anyway, for better or worse. 
> 
> real talk: PTSD affects different people in different ways. temporarily losing the ability to talk is one of them-- it happened to my grandfather after his time in the war. crazy, right?
> 
> and HEY! your reviews are what really jumpstart me to get working on the next chapter. if you really enjoyed something, consider telling me in the comments! constructive criticism is always appreciated as well. to everyone who bookmarked, left kudos and commented, a big thank you. this is difficult for me, but you guys make it all the more worth it.
> 
> the next chapter will be up hopefully in 2-4 weeks-- look out for a new oneshot before then.
> 
> cheers.
> 
> {EDIT AS OF 10/1/17: I am so, so sorry. The muse has left me. The medication is making this harder than I could ever imagine. I am trying. I promise, I am trying.}


	7. Arms Outstretched

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> But no. No, it was more than the growing tiredness. He was smiling because he was here, surrounded by these people, who were good enough to deal with him bringing home a stray kid and take it in stride. They didn’t scold him, didn’t go on about how much this made no sense, how much trouble this could cause. They just— they just _embraced_ it. They took it and ran. Hana set the table and Reinhardt made dinner and Lucio played music and Lena gave a tour, because that’s what he needed— what _she_ needed, more than anything. A kid with nothing left besides herself, who spend months drifting from make-shift hospitals to refugee camps to orphanages, who probably hadn’t had this many people to lean on since her parents.
> 
> He was smiling because he was lucky enough to have a family with arms wide enough to support both him and her.
> 
> -
> 
> A dinner, an explanation, an embrace.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i am so sorry.
> 
> the time it has taken for me to finish this is beyond anything i could have predicted. there are a lot of things that happened. you guys didn't deserve to wait this long without warning, and i sincerely apologize for that. but it's here, finally. short and rushed and probably less than okay, but its here! a final transition chapter that i rewrote (i shit you not) three times, start to finish. i know it's not as nice as the other ones, maybe, but i put lots of sweat and love into this, and i really, really hope you guys can enjoy it. 
> 
> shout-out to UnsolvedRubixsCube-- without you, this surely would have taken much longer. your comments are inspiring. i can't thank you enough.

When Ana finally reappears with Reyes in tow, the table had been set, and the room was filled with the smell of honey-smoked ham and roasted vegetables. Outside, the sun had sunk beneath the flat horizon of the Pacific Ocean, leaving red rays reaching up into the sky like long fingers, gradients of warm color that faded into blackish blue. Crickets came close to the window and chirped a chorus as clouds formed bridges beneath the slowly appearing stars.

 

Upon seeing the two figures enter, Reinhardt had ceased dressing the table with steaming platters of food and rushed to them, wrapping one large arm around both of their frames and squeezing with enough strength to lift their feet from the ground. From where he stood by the bar top, Jack winced in sympathy.

 

“Ana! Gabriel! It’s been too long, my friends,” he declares, releasing them slowly and grinning his large, wholesome grin— the one that conjured lines under both of his eyes. His hands did not leave their shoulders.

 

Gabriel groans, rolling out his neck as if checking to be sure it was still in proper order. “Yeah, well, the people down in medical told me that one more of your bear hugs might finally break my spine, so I figured I’d give it a vacation.”

 

“A _vacation_!” Rein booms, shaking his head, “The Caribbean is a vacation. _Hawaii_ is a vacation. _Eastern Europe_ is _not_ a _vacation_.”

 

“S’the sand,” Gabe explains,“Gets everywhere. Had to change it up.”

 

Ana laughs quietly, covering her mouth with a single half-curled hand. She reaches over to pat the man’s arm, obviously pleased. “You seem quite well, Reinhardt,” she tells him, a smile gracing her lips. He laughs, his grin widening. 

 

“And you, Ana, are looking as lovely as ever.”

 

Jack looks away from the door, detaching himself from where he had been resting against the kitchen’s wall, watching as Rein pulled platter after platter out from the oven and lined them across the table that Hana had freshly set. He breathes in deeply, taking in the smell of home cooking, the quiet pulse of Lucio’s milder music playing pleasantly from the speakers above.

 

Angela had stayed close to him for the most part, taking the headphones from her neck and studying the seams in the metal, glancing up at the arrival and Ana and Gabriel only for a brief moment before losing herself again in her scrutiny. Her fingers traced the lines where different materials met, using one of her thumbs to brush over the buttons. It was like her hands didn't like being still, Jack observed. Like they were always anxious for something to fuss over, to fiddle with, to fix.

 

“We saw Satya on the way down,” Ana says, padding towards the table, taking in the steaming heaps of food. “She said she won’t be making it to dinner.”

 

Jack lifts an eyebrow, resting a hand on the spine of a pushed-in chair. “Seriously? Everything alright?”

 

Hana cut in, chewing on a piece of garlic bread she must have snagged while Rein’s back was turned. “The maniac’s fine. You know how she gets. She’s been mumbling about another breakthrough with her hardlight stuff for days— last night I walked into her bunk and I literally saw more blueprint than wall, if you know what I mean.”

 

Ana sighs. “Has she been taking care of herself?”

 

“Yeah, yeah, we drag her out of her room every couple hours,” Hana shrugs, taking another bite. “She’s been better about taking breaks, now. But, you know, she has her days. And— er— nights.”

 

“Don’t we all,” Gabriel concludes in a fashion that was clearly meant to end the conversation, pulling out a chair and sliding in, reaching both his hands up behind him and arching his back into a long, thorough stretch. “Looks great, Rein— I’d _hate_ to let all of this get cold, now…”

 

Lena gives him an incredulous look. “How are you still _hungry_? You ate dessert.”

 

“You ate _dessert?!”_ Reinhardt demands.

 

Gabe groans, twirling a fork between deft fingers before pointing it threateningly at Lena. “I’m sorry, next time _you_ come back from your third tour in East Europe, we can come back to this and have a proper discussion.”

 

Sighing, Jack glances down at Angela. The girl had placed the headphones back around her neck, her shoulder brushing against his hip as she wrapped one of her pale hands on the edge of the table and stood tall on her toes, glancing out over baskets of bread and bowls of buttered peas. Jack found the corners of his lips drawn a little closer to his eyes, felt a sudden swell beneath his ribs.

 

He grabs the back of a nearby chair and pulls it out from under the dining table, indicating towards it with a flick of his chin. “Go on. S’a good a place as any.”

 

With a dutiful nod and a grunt of effort, Angela hoists herself into the seat, settles with her hands tangled together atop her lap and the toes of her shoes barely brushing the floor. Hana, finished helping with the table, slides into the chair beside her. The recruit flashes her a tilted smile, tucking a single dark lock behind her ear.

 

“You’re lucky it was Rein’s turn to cook,” she tells Angela with a knowing smirk, reaching for her bottle of what looked like energy drink. “Last time Lena nearly burned the base down, hand to God.”

 

“Okay, hold the bloody phone,” Lena demands, taking a seat across the circular table, fixing Hana with a righteous glare. “I am an _excellent_ cook. _You’re_ the one who set fire to boiling water last time you made ramen.” 

 

Hana flushes, sets her drink down hard. “That was Jesse’s fault! I had nothing to do with that!”

 

Lucio snorts into his cup of water, stifling a stitch of laughter. “Mhm,” he smirks, settling down by her side.

 

Hana turns to stare at him through narrowed eyes, poking him hard in the shoulder. “Something to say, Correia dos Santos?”

 

He shakes his head, swallowing. “Only that, after a whole friggin year, your accident still _sucks._ It’s _Sand-_ tos. Not _Saint_ -tos.”

 

“Well, I don’t speak Spanish,” Hana states after another swig of her soda.

 

Slowly, Lucio bows his head, brings two fingers up to pinch at the bridge of his nose. “ _Portuguese_ ,” he demands, for what is certainly not the first time. “It’s _Portuguese.”_

 

“Same dif.”

 

“That’s like saying Chinese is the same as Korean, Hana.”

 

“It’s not,” Mei comments kindly, hanging her thick jacket over her chair before seating herself by Lena. 

 

Ignoring her, Hana jabs him again, baring her teeth in what was either a grin or a growl. “나와 싸워라 _.”_

 

Lucio laughs. “I am choosing to take that as a compliment.”

 

“Well,” Ana starts, dragging a chair out from under the table and seating herself left of Gabriel, weaving her fingers together before her. “It’s good to see that some things haven’t changed.”

 

To her right, Reinhardt gave a single loud bark of laughter, the chair creaking beneath him as he leaned back against it. “Some things, _ja_. Some things you don’t count on to change in six months. Others, though…” He motioned with his large hands to the small girl across the table, let them hover for a moment before resting them on the table. “Well. Others still manage to catch you by surprise.”

 

Jack settled by Angela’s side, filling the last chair at the table save the one intended for Satya. He manages a brief smile in her direction, one that barely managed to crease the corners of his eyes, before turning to face Reinhardt. 

 

“Yeah. It’s—uh. It was a bit—

 

“Impulsive?” Gabriel interrupted, utterly relaxed, reaching to pull a forkful of sliced ham onto his plate. 

 

“I was going to say _sudden_ ,” Jack said pointy, sparing him a hard look. Gabe huffed, dragging the bowl of biscuits towards him. 

 

Ana spoke from her place between them, passing the platter of peas to Jack after dumping some on her own plate. “An argument can be made for both cases, yes. Angela, dear.” She reached over to tap the girl’s empty plate briskly with a butter knife. “Don’t be shy. Eat as much as you’d like.”

 

Angela leaned forward to see the woman properly before glancing out at the table, watching as Hana shuffled salad into her bowl with one hand and reached for a bottle of balsamic with the other, still muttering Korean under her breath. Lena and Lucio argued quietly over a slice of ham that both of their utensils had stabbed into at the same time, glaring at one another, obviously reluctant to relinquish their claim. Mei suggested joint custody. They agreed to split it down the middle.

 

“Here,” Jack said, offering her a spoonful of peas. She turned her attention back towards him, nodding her acceptance, watching as the white of her once-empty plate was interrupted by apile of bright green. The steam traveled up, the smell of butter and salt making her stomach growl with a hunger she had not recognized until now. Her eyes flickered to the fork by her plate. It’s been awhile since she’s eaten like this.

 

“So?” Reinhardt continued, large hands folded loosely before him, obviously intrigued. “Go on— how’d this happen, then? It’s not every day three of Overwatch’s finest sign adoption papers, you know.”

 

Jack laughed a tired, quiet laugh, reaching for the pitcher of water. “I know. We know.” He pours himself and then Angela a glassful, noticing as the girl inched her hand across the tablecloth to grab a biscuit, glancing in his direction. He nods her forward, satisfied when she finally set the bread on her dish.

 

“We were in Halden, ‘bout four months back,” he says, looking back to Reinhardt, motioning with his free hand to Ana and Gabriel. At the mention of the small, use-to-be city, the older man loses some of his lax composure, the smile lines around his eyes weakening. 

 

“Yes. I remember now they had sent you there,” he nods.

 

“It’s tragic, what happened,” Mei comments from beside him, shaking her head at the very thought. “A bomb made to flatten a square kilometer of concrete in the blink of an eye… who has the stomach to even _consider_ using that? Against civilians?”

 

Hana doesn't look up from where she was slicing the corn off its cob. “Bots don’t need stomachs,” she said simply.

 

From the back of his throat, Lucio manages a small, strained noise— maybe a soft warning, maybe something else. “They’re a group of radicals, Hana. They don’t represent Omnics as a whole.”

 

“I know who they are,” she demands quietly, annoyed. “Friggin’ monsters.”

 

“They’ve done horrible things, yes,” Ana agreed, utilizing a clipped tone that was clearly meant to cap the discussion, readjusting the napkin on her lap. Jack managed to catch her glancing in Angela’s directing, and following her gaze, he saw the girl had fallen a few shades paler.

 

The man cleared his throat. “Anyway,” he continued, trying to spur the conversation forward, “That’s where we found Angela.” 

 

Mei’s dark eyes widened, delicate brows arching up in surprise as her lips parted, as if prepared to ask a question. The chair supporting Reinhardt creaked as the large man shifted his weight, bringing up his elbows to brace against the table, fingers weaving together by his chin. The change in his demeanor was subtle yet sudden, taking place in a way that made Angela feel the need to lean back further in her seat, squeezing one of her hands until the nails stung her skin. 

 

He opened his mouth to speak, but Hana beat him to it. 

 

“Wait. She’s— you’re from Halden?” She asked, turning now to face her. There was something there in her voice now, Angela recognized— something quiet but not lacking an edge, nor a kind of weight that tugged at every word. The girl didn't know how to say it in English, despite her efforts to remember. Something like sadness. Something like grief. 

 

“You were there when… when it happened?” Hana asked again.

 

Somewhat reluctantly, the girl nodded, eyes tilting up in the young woman’s direction. 

 

“That’s— wow.” Hana looked a little lost for a moment, her eyes fogged over, her fork motionless between her fingers. Angela wondered faintly if she had done something wrong, and against her efforts to restrain herself, she found her knee beginning to bounce up and down out of worry. Maybe they would realize just how damaged she was— maybe they wouldn’t want her after this— maybe they would send her back, back to locked closet doors and hiding behind Miss Marry— or, maybe, it was just pity. Either made her stomach turn. 

 

But then, as suddenly as the emotion had washed over the woman, it left, and Hana managed a grin wide enough to show the white of her teeth. She held up a hand in the girl’s direction, palm vertical, and for a moment Angela wasn’t sure what was happening. “Survival bros,” she insisted, waving the hand a little. “I was in Korea when the first wave came through. Not nearly as sudden or as hard as Halden, but we still had to evacuate. S’not fun.”

 

Angela, with what could only be described as a shy curiosity, held up her hand as well. 

 

“High-five,” Hana said, and their hands met with just enough force to forge a clapping sort of sound. 

 

Reinhardt, seemingly having settled down a degree, decreed with an aged acceptance, “We’re all from nowhere far, _Vögelchen_. Maybe this brings you comfort, maybe it doesn’t, but we’ve all seen war, you know. We’ve been neck-deep in it.”

 

“Rein—“ Jack started, worried that the man was about to launch into one of his signature stories of guts and glory; a spent battlefield bathed in corpses; a victory torn from the skeletal knuckles of the enemy.

 

Instead, the man just said, “We’ve all lost people.” 

 

The voice died in Jack’s throat, and he felt as the words went back down into his chest, churned there beneath his ribs. The room turned static, suddenly plunged into a place with no clear air, no sense of ease, no reprieve. Across the table, Lena laced her fingers delicately together atop her lap, her usual rowdy demeanor drowned out as her eyes darkened and dropped. Lucio nodded his head mechanically from beside her. Hana said nothing. 

 

To his side, despite not touching her at all, Jack swore he felt Ana stiffen like a string pulled too tight; in his peripheral vision, he watched as Gabriel stabbed a slice of ham with enough force to very nearly crack his plate. 

 

They were different, all of them, in so many ways— Mei was an environmentalist from Xi’an, China; Lena a fighter pilot from London; Lucio a former DJ from some backwater village slowly rotting to rubble in Rio; and he— Jack— was some solider-turned-warhero, veins pumped with steroids and serum and heaven knows what else, who grew up on an honest to God _farm_ in the middle of Missouri. Yes, it was safe to say that everyone at this table was a diamond of a different cut. 

 

But none of them were spared from the world. None of them got to outrun war. 

 

He heard Angela shift carefully in her seat, and when he turned to see her properly, he found her eyes set across the table, glossy but determined. Reinhardt met her stare and went on, managing a worn smile. 

 

“It’s not fair, is it? Having to leave people behind like that.”

 

Angela waited a beat, then shook her head slowly from side to side. At her lap, her little fingers bunched against the fabric of the tablecloth, squeezing in gentle intervals, entertaining her anxiety. The cords of her neck flexed and then lied flat when she swallowed. Jack got the feeling, somehow, that she’s never really been consulted in this way. How could she? How could someone so young— who’s lost so much so quickly— whose hands shake when someone so much as touches her wrong— whose voice had been pried from her throat— how could someone like Angela respond to the simple question of _are you okay?_

 

Reinhardt—war torn, battle bitten, all muscle and hard edges and knotted shoulders and one-eyed _Reinhardt_ — didn’t have to ask. He was too old for that, Jack guessed. He wasn’t that naive anymore. 

 

“It’s hard. Being here and not there.”

 

Angela opened her mouth, and for a moment there was a strained sort of noise that, if given enough time, might have grown into a word. But it died as an exhale, and her head hung, the bangs falling into her face as she brought a hand up to rub her eyes. She nodded, and Jack was suddenly very angry— because she was crying now, or at least trying not to— but he was also very grateful, because Rein had taken the first step into this, whatever _this_ was. It was like opening up a wound so you could clean it and sow it up proper. It was something Jack wasn’t sure he had the courage for, right now.

 

Reinhardt leaned forward hard enough to make the table creak, and his lips were pulled somewhere between a smile and a thin line. “It’s hard. But it’s important, then, for you to know you’re not alone. Displaced, yes. A little sore. But not alone— not here, anyway.”

 

“No,” Hana agreed, breaking her silence, setting down the fork she was using to toy with her food. “No. Obviously. I mean— I’ve only just met you, you know, but— I mean— no one should be alone, war or no war.”

 

Angela tilted her chin up towards the young woman, her face still obscured from Jack’s view, hand still bunched in the tablecloth. Her knuckles had lost some of their whiteness.

 

“An’, you know, we’re not all that bad,” Lena piped up, her voice a stark contrast to the stillness of the room. “Well. Reyes may be an acceptation. But you get used to ‘em, really.”

 

“Wow, thanks,” Gabriel said with a roll of the eyes, stuffing another forkful of food between his lips.

 

Angela rebounded a little after that, managing a muffled giggle, weak but there. She pressed harder against both her eyes and then dropped her hands back to her lap, her pale fingers shinny with tears that she did not allow to run down her cheeks. Her chest rose and fell with a few steadying breaths, and her head rose to fix Gabe with a reassuring nod, almost as if to say, _that’s alright, I think you’re okay._

 

Ana laughed a little at that, and when Jack turned to look at her, she was smiling. He was, too, he realized. He didn’t know why— maybe he was just burnt out, his nerves shot from the day. He glanced down at his watch. It had been nearly twenty-four hours since he had a proper sleep, he realized with a numb sort of recognition.

 

But no. No, it was more than the growing tiredness. He was smiling because he was here, surrounded by these people, who were good enough to deal with him bringing home a stray kid and take it in stride. They didn’t scold him, didn’t go on about how much this made no sense, how much trouble this could cause. They just— they just _embraced_ it. They took it and ran. Hana set the table and Reinhardt made dinner and Lucio played music and Lena gave a tour, because that’s what he needed— what _she_ needed, more than anything. A kid with nothing left besides herself, who spend months drifting from make-shift hospitals to refugee camps to orphanages, who probably hadn’t had this many people to lean on since her parents.

 

He was smiling because he was lucky enough to have a family with arms wide enough to support both him and her.

 

The rest of dinner was surprisingly uneventful. Mei, once prompted by Ana, began further explaining the recent advancements of Antartica’s new Ecopoint, breaking every part down into meticulous detail, talking just as much with her hands as she did with her mouth. She brought out her phone, which held photos of the construction site, and passed it around. Angela seemed interested enough, zooming into the skeletal framings of the building, rotating her head to see it all at a new angle. 

 

Reyes recounted a few stories from over the past half year of being out on the front lines— only the ones with a sunny ending, much to Jack’s relief. The time the three of them got lost in Cambodia and had to hire a local with a tuk-tuk to bike them back to familiar ground. When it was Ana’s birthday and they tried to find her favorite tea in a market-place, only to bring back _tukdaohkom_ which, roughly translated, meant: _pig’s milk_. The night Reyes _borrowed_ (read: stole) a guitar from a music shop long-ago abandoned and cracked out a few untuned chords of classic Rick Astley. People from nearby tents complained, and the next morning, the guitar was found in four separate pieces. 

 

“Ungrateful pricks wouldn’t know music if it slapped them in the face,” Gabe declared.

 

“I thought you were very good,” Ana said in an overly-reassuring way, reaching over to pat the man lightly on the hand. 

 

Angela, much to Jack’s delight, began to eat. Not too much— the peas on her plate and a slice of garlic bread— but enough to satisfy Jack for the night. She seemed content being able to sit there and simply listen, not even flinching when Hana lightly brushed the hair from her face. Every once in awhile, she’s let loose another one of her little laughs, or a smile that showed the gap between her two front teeth. 

 

When Lena got up to clear the table, the girl started as if unsure. After a short moment, she slid of her seat and grabbed her plate, walking it over to the sink and setting it down next to where Lena had begun running the water. 

 

The recruit looked down at her, surprised. “Oh. Ah— thank you! But, you know, you don’t have to do that. We take turns with the dishes. S’my night.”

 

“Yeah, man,” Lucio encouraged, bringing a few more empty plates from the table. “We got this. You can go sit down, if you’d like.” 

 

Angela seemed hesitant, eyeing the growing heap of dirty dishes piling up in the sink. Her hands tangled by her chest.

 

“… Or, I mean, if you really _want_ to help…” Lucio started, glancing at Lena.

 

Immediately, Angela nodded, reaching up for a hand towel hanging from one of the cabinets, just out of reach. Jack exchanged a surprised glance with Ana.

 

“Yeah— yeah, okay, you want to dry?” Lena asked, handing her the towel. “Sure. I’d love the help. Here, Lucio, grab a chair she can stand on to reach— yeah, there you go. Careful, now.”

 

And so Angela became part of the process. Once Lena finished washing the plates off in soapy water, she handed them off to the girl, who toweled them off with practiced care, neatly stacking them into rows.

 

“She’s better than you are, Hana,” Reinhardt smirked.

 

“Maybe that’s what she did back home,” Ana half-whispered to Jack, who could only shrug. 

 

“Maybe. Who knows?”

 

He got up to help Lucio clear off the table, wanting to stretch out his legs— between the car ride and the extended meal, they were cramped in protest. The whole process was over rather quickly with all the extra hands. 

 

They ended up sitting back down at the empty table and talking for another twenty minutes or so, casually bouncing from topic to topic, trying to drag out this moment for as long as they could— this instance where everyone was okay and safe and together. They joked. They reminisced. They brought out the four remaining cookies Gabriel had left and split them amongst themselves, leaving crumbs scattered across the bare table. 

 

Angela sneezed, a delicate sound muffled into the crook of her elbow.

 

_“Gesundheit,_ _”_ Reinhardt chimed.

 

_“Danke,”_  she said back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i will never write another dinner scene ever again. (just kidding. i think).
> 
> again, i'm sorry about how long this took, and some of the style it may lack. i'm still on these meds, and they screw me up on every level. these last two months have been brutal, but i thought about this fic every day, and of you guys, and of how much you all manage to encourage me to keep writing despite my brain telling me i can't. that fact that i finished this chapter is a _feat_ , guys. and, despite everything, i'm celebrating.
> 
> now, the hard part. i cannot guarantee a quick update. writing something this long with such a loose plot is hard, guys. plus, i'm working on tons of personal writing, plus high-school, plus jobs and health and a bunch of other boring stuff. it could be two weeks. it could be two months. i don't know if the future will be more manageable than the past couple months. BUT, know i have not abandoned this, no matter what. 
> 
> now, the fun part!  
> i am toying with the idea of doing one-shot requests (really, anything, as long as it's remotely Mercy-centric. friendship-fics, scenario-studies, etc). i don't know how this would work, or if it would work at all... i would only pick one or two every couple months or so, and they are not guaranteed to be terribly long... i dunno. i just want to communicate more with you guys! i love exchanging ideas and conveying those ideas in different ways. so, there's that on the horizon!
> 
> again, you guys rule. and again, this chapter isn't much. but, if you have the time, leave me a comment telling me what you did (or didn't!) like about this last installment. thank's for all the encouragement you've given me-- I'm not sure where i'd be without it.


	8. Settle In

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Not long after dinner was drawn to an end and goodnights exchanged, Ana found herself following Jack and Angela back to the room Lena had shown them earlier; not because anyone had asked her to, but because she knew deep down that, although he intended well, Jack had no idea what he was doing. 
> 
> -
> 
> In which Angela settles in, Jack sticks around, and Ana Amari just might be wrong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> well, here we are, more than one month later.
> 
> again, i apologize for the wait. i worked really hard on this chapter, though-- i actually had a blast writing it, despite everything.
> 
> i'm trying to keep these initial notes shorter, but i wanted to make it plain and obvious how unbelievably grateful i am for all of you, especially those of you who commented last chapter. it's so weird to think how people i've never met can support me more than people i see every day. the astounding feedback and good vibes sent my way made all of the difference in the world-- not only in my writing, but in my day-to-day life as well. i can never thank you guys enough for that, honest. 
> 
> this one goes out once more to UnsolvedRubixsCube for the much-needed encouragement and tips, and also to HeiszKetchup, who helped me ease up and keep aiming high. cheers to you both-- seriously.

Not long after dinner was drawn to an end and goodnights exchanged, Ana found herself following Jack and Angela back to the room Lena had shown them earlier; not because anyone had _asked_ her to, but because she knew deep down that, although he intended well, Jack had no idea what he was doing. 

 

Not that she— Ana Amari, the single-mother-war-hero who had last seen her daughter nearly six months ago, just before being shipped out to serve her third tour near the front lines— was exactly prime parental material. But, if anything, she figured there was a certain strength in numbers, and that to leave Jack to his own devices on night one would be cruel. Plus, ever since she had spoken her single word at the dinner table, Angela had seemed a little shell-shocked. When the girl thought no one else was looking, she would bring her fingers up to her lips, brush them with a sort of wary fascination and shape them into silent syllables, as if amazed and a little frightened at her newly-regained power. 

 

There was also, of course, the matter of the bandaids. They stuck to Angela in all their bright, multicolored glory, wrapped around her elbows, her knee, a few on her fingers, some only hanging on by a thread. She had seen the girl pick at them curiously on the car ride over, and they had no doubt gone through their fair amount of wear and tear during the excitement of the day. Reaching down into her long coat, Ana patted her pockets, making sure she still had the carton of bandaids left on her.

 

The automatic door slid open with a whooshing sound. Jack entered first, feeling the wall blindly, finding the light switch and flipping it so that shadows retreated to the corners of the room. 

 

“Okay,” he said with an air of accomplishment, putting his hands on his hips and staring at nothing in particular. Once the room was no longer shrouded in darkness, Angela eagerly walked past him, making for her bag she had left atop the dresser. Unzipping it, she dug her arms elbow-deep inside, shuffling for a moment before pulling out a toothbrush. 

 

Toothbrush. Toothpaste. Toiletries. Right. 

 

“Here,” Ana said, stepping further into the room and opening the bathroom door, motioning Angela to follow. It wasn’t a large space, but the girl still seemed to regard the spotless tile and clean shower-bath with quiet disbelief, as if she never imagined she’d have so much to herself. Setting the toothbrush down, she took a hand and ran it over the marble of the sink, standing on her toes to see herself in the mirror. She frowns for a moment. 

 

Jack stood patiently in the door frame, toned arms crossed. “Something wrong?” he asks, his own eyes flickering to the reflection.

 

Angela shakes her head, but her free hand drifts up to her pale cheeks, touches where a smudge of dirt stained the skin. A wash of red had begun to burn over the bridge of her nose. Her eyes dart to the shower curtain, lips parted gently, a question there on her tongue. She wrestles with it for a second— Ana could see the effort written all over her face, conjuring lines of frustration between her brows.

 

“May— I—?”

 

Her voice is different than it was at the table. There, the word had come out almost effortlessly, a mere social reflex. It had taken her a moment to realize she had said anything at all— it was only when she saw the surprised expression of those around her that it all snapped into place, her bluish eyes widening in the revelation. Now, though, the words seem harder, more awkward to push out her throat and around her teeth, as if she had to expel a sizable amount of effort bending them into place. It’s accented heavily, almost a whisper. 

 

From her peripheral vision, Ana watches as the corner of Jack’s lips curve upwards. 

 

“You want to rinse off?” The woman asked, glancing towards the tub. 

 

Angela nodded, grateful for the assistance. 

 

“Of course you can,” she said, bending down and reaching past the small figure to the cabinets underneath the sink, opening one up to reveal a stack of neatly folded towels, white and fluffy. Next to them lied bars of soap and bottles shampoo, all fresh and unopened. Lena— bless the girl— must have stocked the place before they got even here.

 

“Looks like you’re all set,” Ana declared, bringing away an armful of products and sliding open the shower veil. Angela was already taking off her shoes, shoving the oversized sneakers into a corner with a rather distasteful scrunch of the nose. She set Lucio’s headphones carefully near the sink before bending over to peel off her socks, then her loose-fitting shirt, so baggy that she got a little tangled in the folds. 

 

Jack cleared his throat, growing uncomfortable. “I— I’m just gonna, you know… step out,” he said in a weak, stumbling tone— something Ana would have found amusing if not for the panicked look that had suddenly streaked across Angela’s face when the man went to shut the door. 

 

She abandoned the pursuit of wrestling the shirt off her back, and in a flash had moved to prevent the automatic door from clicking completely shut, just by an inch or so. Ana could hear her breathing now— see the rigidness craved into her stance, her spine, seizing her with such suddenness that Ana couldn’t help but feel her own muscles tense with anticipation. From the other side of the door, Jack froze.

 

“No.” 

 

The single syllable echoed in the small space, said with such bluntness that it was hard for either of them to find a proper response.

 

“You… want me to stay?” Jack tried.

 

Angela hesitated, then shook her head. She patted the door nearly separating them, moving her hand back and forth in the sliver of open space, and Ana couldn’t help but remember how they found her only hours ago— remembers how she had helped open the closet door only to step back in surprise as the girl stumbled out, scrambled away from the inky darkness, as if the lack of light was toxic— remembers how her hands were scraped and bruised from the effort of pounding and scratching against the rough wood— remembers her features pressed in panic, palms read and angry and bleeding.

 

It’s going to take time, the woman concludes, before some doors could be closed. 

 

Jack nods, fingers sprawled before him assuringly. “Okay. Keep it open, then?”

 

Angela pauses, her hand still clutching the edge of the threshold, as if a part of her was afraid of the door sliding shut when her back was turned. She nods carefully.

 

“Okay,” Jack says. He straightens and motions to the side. “I’ll be here.”

 

Angela nods again, and he drifts out of sight, the sound of his footsteps against the flooring brushing up against the newborn silence. After a moment, the girl detaches her grip from the door, allowing her hands to drop back down to her side. She glances at Ana from the corner of her eye.

 

The woman set down the bottles of shampoo and soap, stooping down to look at the water levers, as if nothing had happened. “You want a shower or a bath?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder at Angela.

 

After another moment, Angela padded closer to the tub, running a hand over the edge of the basin. The space was so small that with both of them there next to each other, it was impossible not to touch. Silently, Ana takes inventory of the messy, unevenly-cut hair that barely made it past the girl’s shoulders, the dirty smudges on the undersides of her arms, the faint waft of sweat. She feels bad, suddenly, for not offering her a chance to wash off sooner.

 

Angela points to the spout of the tub, the one a few feet below the shower-head. 

 

Ana nods dutifully. “Bath it is,” she states, bending to close the drain before turning the faucet on, listening as the sound of rushing water quickly filled up the room. Taking a step back, she settles herself on the closed toilet seat, motioning Angela closer. “Here, we need to take these bandaids off.”

 

Hesitantly, Angela tears herself away from the slowly-filling tub and allows herself be guided between Ana’s careful hands, not exactly meeting her eyes. She starts with the one near the girl’s collarbone, colored pink like Hana’s nails, and then the two on her elbow, yellow and orange. There are a couple near her knees, some near her wrists, another on her other arm. These pull at the pale, near-invisible hairs, and though Angela does not complain, Ana still feels her tense up under her touch. 

 

“Sorry,” Ana says as she removes one last blue bandaid from her calf, revealing a little cut that was just beginning to scab over. “All done, now.”

 

Angela runs her hand over some of the freshly-revealed scrapes, trying to rub away the imprint of the bandaids. She glances up at where Ana sits and spares her a smile. 

 

Ana returns it with a grin of her own, leaning over to dip her hand in the water rising inside the basin, testing the temperature. New words gather in her throat, and she struggles to put them in order, struggles to make them seem graceful. “I’m sorry that you got picked on back there. Those kids seemed like jerks. It wasn’t right.”

 

There is only the sound of the tub filling and water pipes rumbling, and for a moment, Ana isn’t sure if the girl even heard her. 

 

Then, in a small voice that barely made it over the rushing water, Angela opens her mouth and says, “…‘Jerks’?”

 

Ana is reminded that Angela grew up in deep Switzerland, and that certain English slang may be lost on her. 

 

“Oh. You know,” she starts, motioning delicately with one hand, “Like, a bully. Someone who’s mean or selfish or hurtful. A jerk.”

 

The girl nods, and Ana can practically see the gears turning between her ears, tucking away the stray piece of information. She reaches down, once more attempting to remove her shirt. “Jerks,” she agreed, her voice a little more confident, this time managing to get the oversized article over her head. Almost on instinct, Ana finds herself reaching down to help the process go smoother. Despite having an issue with being touched, Angela seemed relatively at ease without her clothes.

 

When she takes off her shorts, Ana must force herself not to stare at the winding scar slicing down her knee for too long. It’s reddish-white in color and rising slightly in relation to the rest of her skin, shiny in the harsh light, not at all subtle. As a medical officer, she can identify where the doctors had made the incisions, where the stitches had been sewn in and removed. She winces in sympathy.

 

Without asking, Angela lifts herself over the edge of the tub and sinks inside it, allowing the water to come up to her neck, heaving a sign of appreciation. Ana laughs.

 

“Is it okay?” she asks. “Do you want it warmer?”

 

Angela shakes her head, submerging herself further, letting her hair sprawl out in a floating halo behind her. Ana reaches to shut the faucet off before the basin overflowed. When the ripples settle, she can see the body below the water, delicately-boned and beyond tiny, skin stretched tight over a frame too thin for its age. Before she even realizes it, Ana finds herself constructing a detailed dietary plan, counting carbs per meal, planning out how long it would take to get Angela up to a healthier weight. She doesn’t know why the girl is as small as she is, but she knows she’s going to fix it. 

 

Ana stands, stretching her back out. “I’m going to go find you some clothes, okay? Just for tonight, until we can buy you some new ones.”

 

Angela gives a minimal nod, still indulging in the heat of the water, eyes half-lidded and satisfied. She reaches for the bar of soap sitting on the edge of the tub, brings it into the water with her.

 

“Jack’s outside if you need anything, and your towel’s right here. I won’t be long.” 

 

Ana slips out of the room, being sure to leave the door a quarter-open behind her. She finds Jack sitting on the edge of the bed, phone in hand, scrolling through some article. He looks up immediately. 

 

“Where are you going?” he asks a little too quickly, finding his own feet, his phone left on and forgotten atop the sheets. There are dark half-circles under his eyes, more noticeable than before, and Ana is reminded how neither he, her, nor Gabriel have had a proper sleep in about twenty-four hours. Gabe threw in the towel after dinner. From the looks of it, Jack wasn’t far behind.

 

She raises a hand in reassurance. “I have some of Fareeha’s old clothes in my room. I’m going to fetch them.”

 

Jack stays standing, although his shoulders seem to loosen at the promise of her returning. He rocks back on his heels, the insides of his legs leaning against the bed frame, his voice turning a little quieter. “How does she seem?”

 

“Small. A little bruised up. But she’ll be fine.”

 

Nodding, Jack pressed his lips together, toned arms crossed tightly over his chest. “Right. Yeah. You’re sure?”

 

“Jack.” She lays a hand on him, gives him a knowing look. “Sit down.” 

 

He tries to say something else, but she stops him with a slight shake to his shoulder, forcing him back down on the edge of the bed. A noise emanates from somewhere in his chest, a grumble of protest. He never was one for sitting still while there were still things to do. 

 

“Relax,” she tells him, almost sternly. “I’ll be right back.”

 

She leaves him there, looking only a little lost, left with the sound of water splashing from the other room.

 

* * *

 

Jack had torn through nearly eleven articles by the time Angela reappeared by his side, the wet, white hair sticking to her forehead, smelling like soap and shampoo.

 

At first, it was _Top 10 Tips for First-Time Fathers_ , and _The Adoption Etiquette,_ then _German: A Beginner’s Guide_ , shortly followed by _Trauma in Children— What You Need To Know_. He ravaged them for every scrap of information they could offer, jotting lines down on the notes section of his phone, trying to commit them to memory. It kept him busy, fended off the weariness. 

 

He was so wrapped up in the material that he didn’t even realize when Angela padded barefoot into the room, or even when she waited patiently at a distance off to the side, as if standing by for direction. It was only when she stepped closer and tapped him lightly on the hand that he recognized the sound of water draining from the other room, the light spilling out from the wide-open washroom door.

 

He clicked the phone off, turned to give her his full attention. The towel around her shoulders was so large that it practically swallowed her inside the folds, dragging on the floor behind her. “Hey,” he said with a smile, bringing a hand up to rub his eyes. 

 

Angela smiled back at him, stifled a yawn. He noted that her hair seemed lighter, her skin more smooth, void of any soot or dirt. For a moment, the towel hung low on her collarbone, and he could see a bruise peaking in and out of sight as she shifted her weight, bunching the fabric between her fingers. 

 

“Does that hurt?” he can’t help but ask. 

 

She shakes her head— a no— and one of her hands comes and brushes against the top of the bed, reaching for her ratty backpack, bringing it to the edge so she could pull out the thick hardcover she had found in the medical wing. Then, with a huff, she hoists herself onto the mattress, taking a second to wrap herself tighter in her towel-made cocoon before pulling the book onto her lap. The bed hardly bends under her weight. 

 

It doesn’t long for Jack to realize that she’s exhausted. It’s in her bones, how they seem to sink into a position and stay there, too heavy to pick up again. Or maybe how she breathes, all slow and deep through her nose, her chest rising as her lungs fill up all the way. Her eyes, as blue as ever, are half-lidded and drowsy. He empathizes. The day’s been draining for him in just about every way possible, and it makes sense that she’d been in the same boat.

 

Her side brushes up against his hip, the towel soft and warm between them. Angela doesn’t seem to either notice or care— her attention, however fatigued, in invested in the book atop her knees, a single finger moving slowly from line to line, sometimes pausing on longer, more complex words. Jack wants to help, but he finds that most of these words are just as much a mystery to him as they are to her.

 

So they stay like that for awhile, not saying anything, sharing the quietness. Jack looks between her and the room, making notes to have someone come and install better curtains, paint the walls a less clinical shade of white, put in a softer carpet. Angela rereads the same page once or twice before moving on, as if determined to understand it before the next concept was introduced. She doesn’t get far before Ana returns, a stack of soft-looking PJs in her arms.

 

“Sorry it took so long,” she says, the door sliding shut behind her. “These things haven’t been touched in years; I forgot where I stored them.”

 

Angela didn’t look up, but Jack thought he could see her head dip forward just barely, a sign of acknowledgement. 

 

“Those are Fareeha’s?” Jack asks, not moving from his seat. The girl was warm and cozy against his side.

 

Ana shrugs, coming to set the pile of clothes down near them on the bed. Most of them were blue and faded, designed sparingly with little birds or palm trees. “They were. She wore them when she used to come up for those weekends during the summertime.”

 

He tries to remember the last time he had seen Ana’s daughter— maybe before she was shipped off for her military training a few years back, when she was sixteen. He has the image of her standing there in the kitchen, eyes dark like her mother’s, hair pieces shining gold in the late-morning light. She was laughing with Reinhardt about something, arms crossed over her chest, a packed duffle zipped shut by her feet. The way she stood— chest forward, head thrown back and jaw tilted as the laughter trickled out of her— radiated confidence, a sort of resilience that Jack almost admired. 

 

Ana does not talk much about Fareeha these days. He is curious, but not cruel enough to push her. 

 

The PJs fit Angela only marginally better than her previous clothes— the shorts hang crooked on her hips and the sleeves go past her fingers— but she seemed happy enough to have them. After changing into them inside the bathroom, she lifts herself back onto the bed and finds that same spot next to Jack, half-dried hair pressed tight to the sleeve of his jacket, cradling the book between her knees. Ana settles with a satisfied look on her other side, crossing her legs neatly and letting out a breath. She takes out her small metal container of bandaids, tilting it so some of the colored bandages fell into her open hand, working on peeling away their packets and pressing a few of them onto Angela’s knees and elbows. The girl hardly even seems to notice.

 

Ana finishes with a satisfied little sigh, tucking the box back into her inside pocket, letting her frame go loose. Jack sees the adrenaline begin to burn out within her, just as he’s seen in a thousand times before on battlefields and in medical tents, where she pushed away sleep for one night too long. He knows she won’t be sentient by the end of the hour. 

 

“We can take it from here, if you want.” Jack finds himself saying the words almost without processing them, nearly second nature.

 

She waves him off, makes an obvious effort to perk up. “Oh, no, I’m not even—“

 

“Ana.” He gives her a look— one the woman tries to rebuttal with a glare of her own. It crumbles, though, and with a reluctant roll of the shoulders, she stands.

 

“Well,” she starts clasping her hands together and bending down a little, bringing herself closer to Angela, who had removed her nose from between the pages of text and diagrams. The woman smiles with an air of worn resolution. “It’s been a pleasure, Angela. Sleep tight.”

 

Angela frowned, reaching out to bunch her fingers into the fabric of Ana’s sleeve, holding her there for another moment. No longer pressed against Jack, she suddenly seems much more awake.

 

_“Du gehst?”_

 

Ana blinks, lips parted, confusion written all over her face. Jack tries to remember any of the German he had glanced over, although the effort is wasted. The words were rushed, a flurry of syllables that seemed to crash into one another on the way out of her mouth, making it even harder to glean any meaning from them.

 

“Sorry, dear, my German is rusty,” Ana admitted with an unsure smile, not fighting against the little hands holding her. “What did you say?”

 

Angela flushes, lines appearing between her brows, obviously struggling. Jack wasn’t sure if it was because English was harder for her, or because she was still having trouble trying to organize her thoughts into words. Eventually, though, she managed to get the syllables out, slow and unsure.

 

“You— are— leaving?”

 

Without meaning to, Jack feels himself stiffen, a cold stab of guilt twisting between his ribs. He remembers how he first left her back in Switzerland, remembers promising to come back soon, remembers the months that followed. Ana’s face falls a little, her lips pursing as she brings her own hands to hover over the fingers tangled into her coat, just barely touching, her desert-tanned skin dark against Angela’s.

 

“Well, just for the night,” she explained lightly, managing a smile, “I’ll be seeing you in the morning, you know?”

 

Only slightly pacified, the girl stared up at her through thick blonde lashes, allowing her grip to loosen. “In— the morning?” she asked quietly, clearly wanting to be sure.

 

“Yes,” Ana promised, dipping her head. “Bright and early. We’ll get you a check-up and some new clothes— and a haircut, if you’d like.” She brought a single hand up to brush the whitish bangs out of the girl’s eyes, still damp from the bath.

 

This seemed to drive out any doubts Angela must have been harboring, because after Ana had finished, she dropped her hands back to her lap, an appeased look replacing the concern once stamped across her features. She nodded a couple times, leaning back against Jack, her side nuzzling into his. It was strange, he thought, how the girl could go from someone who despised being touched to someone who almost craved it. Not that he minded. 

 

“You are— very— nice,” she tells Ana in that same small tone, staring at her hands, fingering the edge of the textbook. 

 

The smile widens of Ana’s face, a laugh rising gently in her chest, and finding the sound contagious, Jack joins in. There was something about Angela’s shyness that made him weak.

 

“Well, I think _you’re_ even nicer,” Ana stated, tapping her lightly on the nose before standing straight, stretching out her back. The ebony of her eyes met Jack’s, and she held his gaze for one long moment, saying nothing. But it was not a cold silence— it was the comfortable, familiar lull that they had a tendency to fall into after a long day, there simply because neither of them felt compelled to say anything more. 

 

She turned to the door. It slid open as she approached, the harsh hallway light spilling in, backlighting her so the loose strands of her hair turned white. Sparing them one last parting smile, she bade them goodnight, and then disappeared into the bright space, her coat fanning out behind her in her long, confident strides.

 

Jack watched as the entrance closed, leaning his head back where the bed pushed up against the drywall, listening to Ana’s footsteps fade down the hall. He felt Angela shift, crossing her legs and turning the page of her book, holding her chin between both of hands as she began to pick up where she left off in the reading. 

 

This, he had realized, was the first time he and her had been alone since Halden. The image of her half-starved and crumpled onto her side, bruised and bleeding, flashes on the backs of his eyelids, brings back the stench of rotting flesh and dried blood. His shoulders go tight at the memory, and he looks down at the girl by his side, wondering at how she seemed so normal now, despite everything. If you could overlook the scarred knee and little scabs, she was simply a kid with a book, content with her reading and his quiet companionship. There’s no fear in her face; no haunted shadows. Her eyes were far from empty, glowing with icy life, hungry and intelligent. She was just a girl, here, now. Somehow, it was almost frightening.

 

The backpack she brought sat limply by her side, seemingly empty.

 

“Did you bring anything else with you?” he asked, suddenly curious, feeling somewhat obligated to break the silence. 

 

Angela shrugged, extending an arm to feel blindly for the backpack, not looking away from the text. She dragged it closer, and after finishing one last line, brought it onto her lap. She stuck her hand into the opening, the lip of the bag nearly reaching her shoulder as she shuffled around in it, the muffled sound of paper against paper breaking the quiet. 

 

From the backpack, Angela pulled out three things: A beat-up looking sketchbook, thin pamphlet printed in German, and a stethoscope that was one quarter duct-tape.

 

Jack leaned a little closer, trying to get a better look. “Oh,” he said, looking down at the objects, all of which had obviously gone through their share of wear and tear. Angela, who now seemed a little nervous, fiddled with the edges of the notebook, smoothing down the tape that kept the corners from fraying. It was not large, but Jack could see parts in the pages where she had tucked in stray pieces of paper, almost as if it doubled as a folder. The binding obviously struggled to stay together.

 

“Can I see?” he asked, wondering what sat between the cardboard covers. 

 

This obviously made Angela uncomfortable— her eyes flickered to the side, her toes curled inside of her too-big socks. But before Jack could assure her she didn’t need to, the girl had cracked open the sketchbook to one of the first pages, careful to not let some of the papers fall out, running her hands along the parchment.

 

At first, Jack didn’t know what he was seeing. Some of the writing was too small for him to read, paragraphs of German and English that must have been dozens of sentences long squeezed into the margins of the unlined pages, boxed into corners, spilling between drawings of a human arm, sketches of what he could only assume to be the hemispheres of the brain. The paper hardly had any white space left— it was all color coated notes and labels, arrows that pointed to different ligaments in the forearm, bones in the hand. It was a sort of journal— one too detailed to be drafted by just a little girl, he knew.

 

Jack’s mouth hung open as she continues to flip the pages, depicting more diagrams and detailed charts, meticulously-drawn legs and muscles and what looked like a single vertebra cut in half, showing the bundle of nerves inside. She seemed to have ripped out pages of books and magazines and newspapers— always sporting headlines like _Scientist Discovers New Naturally Occurring Element_ or _Experiments in Iceland Prove Artificial Cell Production Possible_ or even _Machinery in Prosthetics: Psudonerves, Receptors, and More_. Next to them were her own notes, arrows that went to point as specific parts of the text, underlining them or even crossing them out, as if she disagreed.

 

“You— you did this? All of this?” 

 

Another shrug. Her cheeks had turned rosy, and she wouldn’t meet his eyes. The page she had stopped on was a little more spacious than the rest— it compared a bird’s wing to a human’s shoulder and arm, highlighted the similarities in shades of orange and yellow, sketched in feathers in the spare room between her notes. The drawings were not masterpieces, but they certainly surpassed Jack’s own artistic skills. 

 

“Angela,” he started, looking closer, “These are awesome. How do you even _write_ that small?”

 

She gave a nervous laugh, looking down at the paper herself, brushing some eraser shavings off onto the floor. Then she closed the sketchbook, carefully sliding it back into the bag. Picking up the stethoscope, she fiddled with the tubing, untangling it. One of the earpieces seemed to have fallen off, and the metal prongs were covered in a shiny layer of duct-tape, but besides that it seemed in working order. She held it up for him to see, and he nodded approvingly before it followed the book back into her bag.

 

The pamphlet, however, lingered in her hands. It was in German, so Jack couldn’t make out most of it, but it seemed familiar to him, somehow. The once-glossy cover showed an aerial shot of what looked like a small city, dotted with green hills and clumps of trees between tall buildings, large windows that caught the sunlight and glowed. Tilting his head, he squinted down at the page, a familiar word in the title catching his eyes: _Besuchen Sie Halden Heute!_

 

_Halden._

 

Oh.

 

“Is that… from before?” he asked.

 

Angela paused, as if too lost in thought to form a response. Then she nodded. The pamphlet opened to two more pages of text, peppered with a few smaller pictures— a local park, a few boutiques connected by a narrow backroad, what looked like college with tall gates. Jack couldn’t read the words, but he got the feeling it was some kind of cheap, basic guide for first-time tourists traveling to the city. He also suspected it was the last scrap of home Angela possessed. 

 

His heart pushed up into his throat, and suddenly, he wished he had not forced Ana to leave. 

 

“It— It looks very beautiful,” he said, hoping it helped, knowing it wouldn’t. 

 

Another slap of silence, a moment so thick with words unsaid that Jack could not keep himself from shifting in his seat. Angela was not crying; in fact, she seemed far from tears. But she wore now a certain kind of resolve, one that hung heavy around her neck, as if she had emerged from some pleasant dream back into the reality that the thing she once called home— what was once green and bright and thriving— was ash. She closed the pamphlet. Slid it back into her bag, which she lowered to rest on the carpet.

 

“It— was,” she replied, nodding her head, as if to remind herself as well. “Beautiful.”

 

He’s not sure how much longer he sat there with her against his side, her eyes trained back on the textbook, scanning over printed pictures of pulmonary arteries and charts about O2 levels, things he knew he’d never understand. He meant to get up more than once, spent minutes mustering up the courage to tell her that he was tired, that he best head to bed, that he’d see her in the morning. But the words never came. There was always something keeping him seated there— the soft rumbling of the AC above them, the way his joints seemed to have gone loose and warm, the pitter-patter of leaves against the windowpanes. 

 

He leaned his head all the way back, watched the figure tucked against him out of the corner of his eyes. Every once in awhile, she would have to roll the sleeves back up to her elbows to keep them from covering her hands. It was endearing, somehow.

 

“You’re something else,” he murmured, his vision going soft and blurry around the edges. The undertow of sleep pulled hard at all of his weak places; he felt his body go heavy, his consciousness begin to slip. 

 

Before he surrendered to the world of wakelessness and warm shadows, he swore her heard her bid him goodnight.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this story is 135 pages long. i just thought i'd share that fact, because i realized today that this could have been a fucking novel if Blizzard didn't hijack my life. oh well. this is fine, too.
> 
> i know not a lot happens here-- but starting next chapter, i'll be introducing at least one new character and changing up the pacing, hopefully in a good way. still, this was fun to write, although i am regretful that it took this long to finish. if you want to drop me a comment telling me how you liked this installment, or if you have any questions or even constructive criticism, know that i will appreciate every word. you guys really help keep me motivated. 
> 
> oh, one last thing: a few of you have asked if i had a tumblr or something of that nature. i dont as of now, but if this is something a lot of you really want, i'd totally consider making one. i do have a bunch of OW / Mercy artwork and little scraps of writing that may best be suited for that kind of thing, but with highschool and stuff, i'm not sure how much time i could put into it. idk-- let me know your thoughts, if you have any.
> 
> i really, really hope you guys enjoyed, and again, thanks for all of your unbelievable support. until next time. cheers!
> 
> [ALSO: why the hell is "famfic" not a more used tag?????]


	9. Here, There

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Angela freezes. Her limbs feel cold and stiff, as if the blood forgot to stop by. Vaguely, she thinks she ought to reach out, touch her, feel the warmth behind her skin. She needs to move. She needs to _hold her._
> 
> Her mother smiles, a blinding flash of teeth that leaves holes in her vision.
> 
> -
> 
> Angela dreams.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> me??? not update for over two months?? you sure????
> 
> well, i'm back, with a promised change of pace. initially, this chapter was gonna be one long >7k word mess, but my lovely boyfriend and part-time beta reader suggested i split it into something more manageable. so, take this short installment with the knowledge that there is (much) more on the way, most likely arriving very soon :)
> 
> this one goes out to LadyVin. thanks for all your encouragement!

Her mother is calling for her.

 

She is in a field of green and yellow, her dress stained irreversibly with drops of acrylic, a canvas stretched across her knees and a brush tucked firmly between her fingers. A tree looms over her— some old and ancient thing branching out in all directions, blotting her skin in patches of shade and sunlight, losing leaves in the wind. Her hair flutters, a familiar shade of honey-white, stark against the wood. Grass sways by her legs, dotted with flowers.

 

Angela is somewhere both far and close, and she tries to focus on her mother’s face, but it’s difficult, somehow. The lines of her nose and jaw come loose, distort like water over ink. She tries to move forward, and though her legs are moving, limping forward as fast as they can, she is going nowhere.

 

“Mama,” she says, but her voice is so quiet that the breeze bulls over it, carries it the wrong way. She tries again, tries until she is screaming, tries until her vocal cords ache and strain, but the words always die out, drop dead to the dandelions at her feet. 

 

Her mother is calling for her, but her tone is easy, almost amused. She sings her name, like the two of them were playing hide-and-seek, like they had all the time in the world. 

 

_Angela. Angela, come see what I’ve done._

 

She means the painting, surely. It’s Sunday after all. 

 

Somedays she works in violent strokes, in shades of scarlet and fuchsia, in straight and strangely jagged lines that piece together something too abstract to properly recognize— something that always reminded Angela of the underside of a motherboard, wires crisscrossing and running off the page. Other days, she works slowly with watercolors, creates sunsets over oceans with no shores, gulls gliding over sailboats and tsunamis. Sometimes she drowns herself in oils, comes away from the canvas smelling of dried turpentine and primer. In any case, she’s doing it on a Sunday, most likely near noon, where the sunlight was relentless. 

 

“Mama,” she tries again, stumbling over herself, her bad leg determined to slow her. “It’s me. I’m here. Mama, I’m right—“

 

_Look at this,_ liebling.

 

Oh, and she _tries_. She cranes her head, squints against the sun, tries to see the newest masterpiece. But it is just out of view, tucked against her mother’s shoulder.

 

“Please,” she begs, fighting for breath. She can smell the paint, her mother’s perfume, fresh and light and lovely. She’s right there, back against the bark. She’s right _there_. “I can’t— I’m here, see? See, Mama?”

 

And her mother laughs, a sound that makes Angela see colors where they don’t belong. The sky turns aqua. The oak tree seems to glow, the grass thrive. She looks up just barely, and Angela tries to see _her_ — tries to put the angles of her face in proper order, straighten up the blurred lines— but it’s a mess, a mess, a mess. It all falls between her fingers, lost to the static.

 

_Angela?_

 

“I’m here. I’m— I’m _here,”_ she demands, although she cannot say anything further, cannot comment on where _here_ lies. “I-I’m— Just look at me, please? Please, Mama? Why— Why won’t you—“ 

 

Her voice breaks there, the ground jumping up to grab her, making her trip and fall. She looks down, places her hands against the dirt, tries to push herself up. It’s too hard— something’s wrong— gravity holds her tight. 

 

The wind picks up, tosses her hair in front of her face, blocks out the sky. It’s all she can hear for a moment— that roaring, rushing sound, air moving by her ears so fast that it threatened to unroot her, send her flying. She digs her hands into the grass, knotting her fingers around the strands.

 

A giant, torn sheet of shade crosses over her. The breeze dies out. She lifts her chin, notes with surprise the branches suddenly hanging far above her, the leaves falling by her nose, the harsh incline of the ground. Turning her head, she feels her lungs shrink, her heart explode like one of those bombs, something that shatters against her ribcage, splinters down into her stomach.

 

Her mother sits there, mere feet away. 

 

And everything is clear now, a sudden rush of details so sharp they almost hurt to look at— the hue of her eyes, the arch of her nose, the thin, delicate movements of her hands when they go to move across the canvas. Her fingertips are kissed with color. In a small motion, she tilts her face to regard Angela, holds her there delicately in her vision.

 

Angela freezes. Her limbs feel cold and stiff, as if the blood forgot to stop by. Vaguely, she thinks she ought to reach out, touch her, feel the warmth behind her skin. She needs to move. She needs to _hold her_.

 

Her mother smiles, a blinding flash of teeth that leaves holes in her vision. 

 

_Do you like it? Your father wanted something new for his office. Something light._

 

Angela doesn’t look. She is afraid— terrified, really— that as soon as she blinks, this will be over. She feels her mouth move. Her jaw creaks like a metal hinge.

 

“Yes,” she manages, hardly a whisper, her eyes wide and hungry. She devours the shape of her face, the fading lines between her brows, creased from the sun. She commits the lines to memory, hopes, _prays_ , that she won’t forget them this time.

 

Tucking the brush behind her ear, her mother turns back to the painting, her lips quirked in that almost-smile she uses when she’s ankles deep in this kind of work. She puts a fist to her chin, thinking. It’s almost frightening how alike she looks to those old statues Angela always finds in museums, all confident and at home with themselves, hard marbles made into something softer, realer, one step away from life. 

 

“… Mama—“

 

And she knows something’s wrong with this, can feel it in her chest, but despite herself she tries, sinks her teeth into hope and feels it burn down into her throat, hot like candle-wax.

 

_I think I’ll water down the shadows_ , she comments, reaches down by her hip, drifting a hand over her pallet. 

 

“We need to go—“

 

_Maybe we can stop by the library on the way back, hm? I bet you’ve finished that old textbook by now._

 

“Where’s Papa?”

 

Angela tries to reach for her, misses every time. It makes her dizzy. She holds her head between her hands, tries to shake the sensation of her stomach dropping, like she was on a rollercoaster she didn’t know how to get off of. She glances up between the branches, finds the sky so blue that it made her eyes ache— some unsettling shade of turquoise, smudged with neons, tearing up the clouds. The ground is shaking; has been shaking for some time now. How had it taken this long to notice?

 

She looks back to her mother, calm as always. The brush in her hand moves slowly, unfazed by the tremors. 

 

“Please,” she says, and her voice seems to make it this time, seems to rise over the wind, the sound of scratching against canvas, the low roar of the earth. The smell of gasoline rises up, something acrid like gunpowder. “Come with me.”

 

Her mother stares, tilts her head back and to the side, amused. One of her hands reach out, ethereal and perfect, and tucks a strand of hair behind Angela’s ear. Her fingers are cold.

 

Angela goes still.

 

_Always so concerned,_ she murmurs, smiling gently. Her hand lingers there, trailing little by little down her cheek, so light it almost tickles. 

 

It takes a while to compute. Slowly, Angela turns in to the touch, tucks the right side of her face into her mother’s open palm, takes in the scent of her, all roses and whitewash and safety. Something prickles at the bottom of her closed eyes. She feels her chest shudder as she breathes out. 

 

She wants to remove the space between them— wants to destroy it, decimate every inch. She grabs onto her mother’s arm, holds on as hard as she can manage, presses tightly into her hand with the intention of keeping her there; tying her down to earth. 

 

There is a resounding thunder somewhere far off, the ripples of dust racing towards them. She knows without looking what is coming, knows that the sky will be dark soon, that the grass will shrivel and die, and the buildings on the horizon will buckle and bend to the will of whatever war everyone couldn’t seem to stop talking about. Panic percolates. She opens her eyes, lifts her head to see her mother, screams.

 

It’s wrong. _She’s_ wrong. Her eyes have sunken back into her skull, her hair was falling out, and her lips were dry and cracking. Blood coated her shirt. The tips of her fingers were swollen and blackened and smelled like death, something wet and rotting. She was the color of snow— old snow, dirty snow, equal parts filth and sludge, a half-melted mess. 

 

Angela throws herself back, scrambles for solid ground. 

 

_“Mama!_ ” she shrieks, horrified. 

 

The corpse does not respond. Above them, the tree has suddenly gone bare and brown. Below them, the ground splits open, gives way, and in one swift bite, swallows them whole.

 

* * *

 

Her eyes snapped open, and before anything else, she felt both her hands come up to her mouth, muffling the scream that threatened to split the quietness. 

 

Everything shook— her body, her breath, her bones. Her bad leg ached, the familiar sensation of pins and needles crawling up from her knee to her thigh, the scar that lied there burning against her skin like hot metal. There was the taste of grime in her mouth; cement, soil. She resists the urge to spit, squeezes her eyes shut until it hurt.

 

Her mind reels, sputters like a faucet overflowing, weighted thoughts making her head hang heavy against her chest. She chokes, tries to feel the air in her lungs. 

 

The face is still printed on the back of her eyelids— the wrong one, all collapsing cheeks and hair matted with blood, a broken jaw that hung unhinged and crooked.

 

_Mama._

 

Procedure takes over. Immediately, she clenches everything, working from her shoulders down, tightening her muscles one by one— arms, abdomen, legs— shrinking in on herself, locking it all down. She balls her hands into fists, feels her skin roll over the bones of her knuckles, the nails digging into her palms. The pain is anchoring. 

 

It takes a moment to remember where she is— to recognize the empty dresser sitting across the room, the bare walls. The space was dim but not dark; cool, but not enough so to warrant bringing up the covers. The air vents above her hummed quietly, white noise, something to sink into as she rode out the last of the tremors. She tries to force her hands to stop shaking; stop her vision from swimming in dark smudges of blue and grey. It’s a tedious endeavor.

 

She refused to surrender to another episode— refused the terror, the panic, the pressure in her throat that threatened to render her a useless tangle of limbs. She will not allow this to send her spiraling, make her sick. She _won’t._

 

Once the blood stopped roaring in her ears, she recognizes another sound; soft, like waves falling against some shore. Taking a steadying breath, she turns her face and finds him laying there, head tilted all the way back to lean against the wall, his mouth open and eyes closed. 

 

Had Jack not been snoring, Angela is certain she would have woken him. The man was somewhere deep in his own dreams, his chest rising and falling in a slow, methodic rhythm, his eyes moving only slightly from under their lids. One hand is tucked into the pocket of his uniform, but the other lies startlingly close to her. She realizes she had fallen asleep near the crook of his arm, left a damp spot of drool on his sleeve. Quietly, she reaches up to her cheek, traces the little lines that his jacket had left there, creased into her skin. 

 

The light from the bathroom was still on, a line of white-gold that fell atop the bed, arched over Jack’s knees and lap. She studies his face, finds the lines of his jaw, the gentle crease between his brows, the dented arch of his nose. They are steady, reliable. The sharp throbbing behind her ribs dulls.

 

It was still dark outside. She looked down at his watch. _4:46 a.m.._ Not bad, for her. 

 

She sits there for a moment, taking in the stillness, making sure it wouldn’t again be ripped away from her. Hesitantly, she leant back, curled in on herself as tight as she could and carefully tucked her chin into Jack’s side, soaking in the heat of him, the pulse of his body, so undoubtedly _alive_. She drowned herself in the sound of him breathing, a measured, careful noise that kept her awake, submerged there in the semidarkness. 

 

She is not foolish enough to try sleeping again— they are still there, dreams storming in her subconscious, waiting patiently for another chance to sink their teeth into her and make a mess. Settling in for the coming hours, she steels herself, forces her eyes to stay open.

 

Jack is warm. He smells like summer, cut grass and sweat, sunsets over still water. She feels the hardness beneath his skin, feels the strength there, the power, practiced and controlled. When he breathes, everything moves. Abdomen, chest, neck and shoulders. She distracts herself by drawing him inside her head, labeling the individual tendons, muscles, bones, picturing how they interlock and move. 

 

She can’t help herself from pressing against him, constantly making sure he was still there, that he didn’t get swept up and swallowed by the world, buried with the others in unmarked graves, mass burnings. The thought made her nauseous— made her want to tug at her hair until the strands came loose. She grabbed onto the hem of his open jacket, squeezed until her knuckles ached, until she thought the pressure would make her bones pop out of place. He stirred, let out a soft breath. Then sunk back into stillness.

 

_Don’t go_ , she wanted to tell him, wanted to scream, wanted beg from on her knees. But the words were too small. They died in her mouth.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i rewrote the first part upwards of three times. like, bulldozed-over, start-from-scratch kind of rewrite. was it too abstract? OOC? i don't do scenes like this often. i tried playing around with the pacing. writing is hard, man, and i promise that i really am trying my best!
> 
> thank you to EVERYONE who commented or left kudos on this fic. there wasn't a day that went by in the past couple months that went by without me thinking about this story, and, like always, i wish i could have put it out a bit faster. reference my previous note about the sucky-ness of highschool, and you'll get why this takes so long. plus, i submitted a one-act to my school for this competition, and it got chosen, so i'm putting a lot of time into directing that (i should mention i have never touched or written any kind of play before, RIP).
> 
> alright, enough ranting. thanks again, and, seriously, expect more soon. if you enjoyed, please consider leaving me a comment. they help me get motivated and feel like my writing doesn't suck, tbh.


	10. An Exception

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “And here I thought you were far too busy to associate with us mortals,” Gabriel huffed, throwing her a lazy grin.
> 
> Satya sighs. “To every absolute, there is an exception.”
> 
> “Quite the paradox.”
> 
> “Hmm.”
> 
> -
> 
> The one where Gabriel wears an apron, Satya makes an appearance, and Lucio looks out for just about everyone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know longer doesn't always mean better, but i mean, here's 7,333k words for your indulging pleasure.
> 
> it's a bit of a mess, but hey, we're all used to that by now. Satya was a really, really hard character to feel out. i hope i did her justice. also, my son, Lucio, is the bravest, bestest cinnamon bun ever to grace this earth, and i am willing to fight any and all who oppose.
> 
> okay, i'm done. enjoy-- and a shout out to all who bookmarked, commented, and left kudos. i say this a lot, but i never stop meaning it: you guys keep me motivated and writing. this story surly would have stopped long ago if not for all the support you all throw my way.

 

The sunlight wakes him up.

 

He feels it pressing on the outside of his eyelids, filtered through the bare windows in hues of orange and yellow, lifting him from sleep. A hand comes up, shades his face from the glow as he takes a moment to orient himself, acknowledging the dull, aching sensation in his spine, an obvious protest to how he had fallen asleep using drywall as a pillow. He groans, rolls out his neck in an attempt to relax the muscle, taking in the room he woke up in— the bare walls turned blinding by the sunlight, the empty cabinet by the bedroom door, the hardwood flooring. His mind stalls, struggles to remember how he got here. For that moment, blinking the sleep from his eyes, he is calm; pleasantly blank.

 

And then it all comes back to him at once, and he sits up straight, immediately awake. The car ride. Dinner. _Angela._

 

“Angela?” he calls, voice still waterlogged with drowsiness. He lifts both his arms, turns quickly to search for her. But the bed is empty, the covers still wrinkled from where the girl had lied down atop them, her book closed and placed on the nightstand. Distantly, as if in a dream, he remembers her head against his hip, the way her body shifted against him as she breathed, her chest rising and falling. The smell of her lingered there on the sheets, soap and strawberry shampoo, a splash of antiseptics.

 

He is on his feet so quickly that he feels the blood rush from his head, his vision blurring as his balance is thrown hard to the left. Reaching for the nightstand, he steadies himself, blinking his eyes hard until he feels the world stop spinning beneath his feet. He makes his way to the bathroom, opening the door all the way to finding the space empty. A heat rises in his face, his hands, his chest. Where was she?

 

Nearly sprinting, he heads for the hallway, the door sliding open automatically just before his nose could make contact with it. He turns his head both ways, takes stock of the empty tile corridor, prepared to yell her name again. 

 

The word freezes in his throat as he hears a soft commotion from the kitchen, the sound of pots and pans being shuffled together echoing down the hall, someone’s voice just barely rising above it. There is the smell of something sizzling; eggs, bacon, biscuits and grits. Jack stands a little taller, regaining some sense of composure. His legs move on their own accord, a brisk pace that came just before running, his hands closed and swinging by his sides. 

 

For the first time in a long time, Gabriel is cooking. Jack walked in to find the man shaking salt into a pile of grilled peppers, using his other hand to shuffle a pan of scrambled eggs over the stovetop with practiced ease. He’s wearing a fresh hoodie and a pair of sweatpants, his short hair sticking out of his beanie in a way that suggested he had just recently rolled out of bed. Whistling, he turns, grabs a jug of orange juice and fills a glass up half way, setting it down in front of Angela.

 

_Angela_. Jack’s chest decompressed at the sight of her sitting there at the bar, the tightness draining away into relief. He stood at the threshold, watching her trail after Gabe with only her eyes, nodding along to what appeared to be a mostly one-sided conversation.

 

“So, yeah,” he said, closing the fridge and moving back towards the stove, “After spending a week and a half trying not to sneeze my spine out, we discovered I was allergic. Which sucked _profoundly_ , because we were stationed at the time in Key West, where, you know, those hairballs are as abundant as the freakin' coconuts. It took another week for Medical to send down a suppressant. Ana wouldn’t stop laughing— every time a cat crossed the street it was just— _ah-CHOO_ , you know?”

 

Angela giggled a little, but it was a small sound, one that barely made it over the sizzling of onions and frying of bacon. She toyed with the toast on her plate, eyes downcast. “I… I like cats,” she said in her shy, quiet voice, as if unsure what response it would bring. 

 

Gabriel scoffed, made a waving motion with his hands, his posture loose and lean and easy, as if he had known her for much longer than two days. “‘Course you do. Everyone likes cats. It’s just, you know, it’s just _hard_ to like them when every time you’re within five feet of ‘em, your face gets all swollen and your nose gets as big as an honest to God _grapefruit_ , eh?”

 

Another laugh. Jack entered the room, knocking on the threshold to announce himself. Gabe merely glanced up at him, still bent over a pan of something sizzling. Angela, on the other hand, twisted her entire body around to see him, eyes flashing with recognition, a relieved smile gracing her lips. 

 

“Hey,” he said to her, leaning against the bar top. She had changed into a new shirt and shorts— still baggy, but a little more fitting than the PJs she was given last night. “I was wondering where you went.”

 

She drops her eyes a degree or two, nods her head towards where Gabriel was cooking. “Breakfast,” she explained timidly, as if worried she should have asked him first.

 

“That’s cool,” he said, giving her a reassuring grin. “Gabe’s a poet with a spatula.”

 

“S’a gift,” Gabe declared, grabbing a plate and placing it down in front of Jack, already loaded up with the works— eggs sunny-side-down, peppers, a spoonful of grits. His favorite. “We were wondering if you were ever getting up. I walked into Angie’s around seven. She was awake, but you were comatose. Practically drooling.”

 

Jack couldn’t help his eyes from rolling. He grabbed a glass, poured himself a tall drink of water before settling down next Angela, poking a fork into his food. “Yeah. It was a big day, I guess.” He turns, glances at the girl. “Sorry I fell asleep on you. I didn’t mean to.”

 

Angela flushes, shakes her head, her eyes not quite meeting his. “It’s okay.” 

 

She takes her time with the words, her fingers fiddling with the fraying end of a napkin. As weak as her voice seems— something that stood on boney stilts, a fawn struggling to lift off from the ground— he realizes he has fallen for it. The accent, the soft lilt, the delicacy. He wants to hear more of it; wants to coax her into conversation, smooth out the nervous creases in her sentences. 

 

“How did you sleep?” he asks.

 

She hesitates, nods. “Fine,” she says, hardly moving her lips. Her eyes meet his with obvious effort. “Thank you.”

 

“Sure,” he responds, reaching for the salt. 

 

She doesn’t glance away from him for a spot of time, watching as he unloaded the shaker onto his plate, blue eyes set and unblinking. When he turns his head back towards her, though, she diverts her gaze, lets it fall back down onto her plate.

 

“So, is Ana up?” he asks, looking out the window, where the sun was trailing up over the horizon. It was a nice day out; a shock-blue sky, not a cloud to be seen as a breeze rushed through the trees, leaves falling against the panes. He hasn’t had a slow morning like this in a while. 

 

“Yeah,” Gabe says, turning off the burner. He slides the eggs and bacon onto serving plates, dumps the pots into the sink and turns the water on. 

 

“Since when?” 

 

“Not sure. Before me. We met her here in the kitchen— she’ll be back soon.”

 

Jack ducked his head and glanced at his watch, surprised to find the time brushing up against nine. He chews thoughtfully on a slice of bacon, eyes fluttering as the flavor explodes in his mouth. He sags dramatically.

 

“I don’t get why you don’t do this more often,” he says, already loading his fork back up with eggs, peppered with tomatoes and grilled onions. “Seriously. You’re a great cook.”

 

Gabe shrugs, his back turned as he messed with something in the sink. His voice is gruff, flat. “Been busy.”

 

There was the sound of footsteps echoing from the hallway, sharp and clicking. Resting his elbow on the bar, Jack turned in his chair, twisting to see a woman dressed in a sleeveless shirt strutting towards them, a tablet tucked under her arm, tinted glasses atop her nose. Her sweatpants were standard Overwatch issue, grey and baggy and nearly dragging on the floor behind her. The black hair that fell in a curtain behind her stuck up in more than a few places, as if she had neglected to run a brush through it for the past two nights. Despite this, she carried herself with perfect poise, back straight and posture irrefutable, like she was caring imaginary books atop her head. She dipped her chin in Jack’s direction.

 

“Good morning,” Satya said, voice rich and rolling, her accent as crisp as ever.

 

Jack stood immediately, reached an arm out and shook her hand— the human one, real flesh and bone. Her nails were painted white. “Satya, hey, good to see you.”

 

She nodded easily, as if they had seen each other just yesterday instead of six months ago. Her hand drops from his own, goes to adjust the tablet tucked under her other arm, the one made of metal and wires and hardlight, white sheets of titanium layered over carbon fiber. The joint hummed quietly as it readjusted.

 

“It is. Hello, Gabriel.”

 

From the other side of the bar, Gabe saluted loosely with a spatula, talking around a bite of breakfast. “Hey.”

 

Behind him, Jack heard Angela suck in a soft breath. Satya tilted her dark eyes downwards, utterly relaxed, regarding the girl with flat curiosity. They scanned one another for a quick moment, each waiting for the other to say something, Angela’s pale eyes locked onto Satya’s arm.

 

“You’re Angela,” the woman said. Jack wasn’t sure if this was a question. 

 

Deciding to step in, he nodded, his hand drifting to rest on the back of the girl’s chair. “Yeah, this is Angela. Angela, this is Satya Vaswani. She’s a researcher here.”

 

“An architectural and biotechnical engineer,” Satya clarified.

 

Jack nodded. “Uh— right.”

 

With obvious difficulty, Angela tore her eyes away from the robotic limb, swallowed hard and looked up at Satya’s face. “H-Hi,” she said, splitting the word into two syllables. 

 

Satya’s expression did not change. “Hello.” She scans her again, eyes calculating and precise. Jack can practically see her storing away the information like bits of data, taking stock of the secondhand clothes and uneven hair and pale, bandaid-speckled skin. She adjusts her glasses, stands straighter. “I apologize for the late introduction. My work is demanding.”

 

“What’s new,” Gabriel said. Jack turned to him, sighed.

 

“Gabe.” 

 

“Kidding, kidding.”

 

Satya goes for the cabinet above the sink, searches silently for something, delicately tilting bottles of spice and herbs aside. Gabe angles his head at her. He picks up a kettle from the stove top, steam creeping up steadily from its throat, a waft of lavender and lemon. 

 

“Made tea, if that’s what you’re looking for,” he says gruffly, taking off the apron that had been tied around his waist. Satya stares pointedly at the kettle, processing this. The aloof look melts slowly from her face, replaced by subtle amusement, even fondness, her brows arching gently as the corner of her lips slant up.

 

“It’s good to have you back, Gabriel,” she declares, her metal hand brushing over his shoulder as she passes, reaching for a mug. “Thank you.”

 

He nods politely, moving to seat himself beside Angela, carrying a plate so full of it constantly threatened to spill over. “Sure.”

 

Angela watched as Satya poured the amber liquid, studied the joints in her prosthetic, icy eyes unblinking. Her own plate, a small heap of eggs and a slice of toast, remained untouched. Jack felt uneasiness settle in his chest, and not for the first time, he noticed the dark bags under eyes, the slight tremor in her hands when she forced them into stillness, the way she would sometimes look down in a daze, as if trapped in some daydream. 

 

He starts to say something to her. He isn’t fast enough.

 

“T-Thank you.” It takes two tries for Angela to get the words out loud enough. She twists the napkin in her lap, locks eyes with Satya, manages to hold her gaze. “For the— cookies.”

 

Satya blinks, setting down the kettle. Jack feels himself smile.

 

“Well,” she starts, somewhat pleased with herself, something tugging at her lips as she goes back to fixing her tea, “At least someone here has manners. I’m glad you were able to enjoy them at all— I hear Gabriel did his best to make sure they were gone before dinner.”

 

Gabriel made an uncommitted noise towards the back of his throat, taking his time chewing. “Stone me, I’m passionate.”

 

“Y-Your arm,” Angela starts again, as if afraid she’d soon lose the nerve, putting her hands on the bar top and motioning towards the woman. “It’s— ah— not…” She trails off, either forgetting the word or choosing not to say it.

 

Satya stares. She raises the metal limb, flexes it gently. “It’s metal. Titanium. Carbon fiber and nano-technologically impacted. Why?”

 

Angela goes red, looks down into her lap. 

 

“I…”

 

Jack feels himself rise up in his seat. Satya was never very graceful with casual conversation— she preferred B-line patterns of speech, direct routes from question to answer, start to finish. Usually, Jack had no issue with that. It might have sent Angela the wrong message, though.

 

“She’s just curious,” he says, sending Satya a pointed glance. “It is rather interesting, isn’t it?”

 

She met his gaze, raised a single perfect brow. “Of course. It’s a high-quality product. There are hundreds of thousands of nerve receptors in each finger alone, millions total. Vishkar’s principles may be twisted, granted, but they’re technology certainly isn’t… I can probably feel more textures than you can, Jack.”

 

In his peripheral vision, he sees Angela lift her chin just slightly. Her eyes find his, and he nods her forward, managing a reassuring grin. She swallows hard, gathering herself, rolling her knuckles over her knees.

 

“How?”

 

Satya balked a little, clearly taken back by the question. She stared at Angela, equal parts confused and keen, although for what, exactly, Jack couldn’t tell. He watched as the woman shifted her weight closer, holding the limb in question over the counter between them. 

 

“It’s rather complicated. There are artificial cells that line the outer layers— here, for instance, around the palm. They send signals to my nervous system.”

 

Angela nodded, leaning forwards until she was balancing on the edge of her seat. Still bent over his plate, Gabe casually reached for the back of the chair, as if fearing it would topple. 

 

“Yes,” she says quickly, considering the metal arm. “But… how?”

 

Satya blinked. Her eyes, dark pools of rusted copper, cut into Jack’s, looking for direction. She has tried explaining the intricacies of her biotech before, and although most of the recruits had hung on for a few minutes, most were lost after she started using words like _pseudo-affinity chromatography, catabolite repression,_ and _polyadenylation._ Ana herself, with a medical degree and countless years of experience, tapped out after half an hour.

 

Still, that seemed right up Angel’s alley. He motioned down toward the girl, mouthed _go for it_ to Satya _._

 

“…Well” she started, as if considering how far into the depths of neuroscience she should take this with a seven-year-old, “The cells link from artificial means to genetic ones through a series of microscopic and interconnected wires that run from the tips of the fingers to the elbow. There, they branch out into thicker streams, running up the biceps and triceps. Past the shoulder, they are weaved into the spinal nerves.” 

 

She paused, looks down to see if Angela was losing interest. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth— the girl was studying the metal arm intensely, held rapt by Satya’s explanation, brows furled as she ran them over in her head. She dragged a finger over the table, as if diagramming something mentally

 

“I understand,” she said quietly. 

 

Satya beamed. After taking a long sip from her mug, she nodded down to the pale limb, suddenly eager. “Touch it.”

 

Jack and Gabriel immediately shared a glance, surprised. If there was one thing Satya valued, it was personal space. Especially with her arm. Last year, Lucio had stuck some of those _ABC_ magnets on it while she was asleep to spell out _LUCIO WAS HERE_ , and she didn’t speak to him for a month.

 

Weary, Angela stared at the piece of machinery, slowly reaching out her own hand and hovering over the top of Satya’s wrist. Her fingers brushed the limb, careful, obviously not wanting to smudge the shining surface. 

 

Satya looks down at the contact, pleased. “Your body temperature is between ninety-eight and ninety-nine degrees. Your heart rate is around one-hundred and twenty BPM.” She pauses here, tilts her head. “And your blood pressure is a bit low.”

 

Angela’s jaw dropped. Gabe laughed, a sound muffled by the food in his mouth. Jack felt himself grin at the look on her face, so stunned that she stopped fidgeting with the napkin at her lap. After a moment of silence, her expression lit up, a smile— big, toothy, making Jack’s chest turn inside out— playing loudly on her lips. 

 

“How?” she repeated, easier this time, too excited to be shy. She looks Satya right in the eyes.

 

The woman seemed amused. She turned her prosthetic around, ran a finger down the base. “Like I told Jack— I can sense textures and heat more acutely than others. Especially after using it for so long. There are millions of sensors that gather here and relay the information to ports near my shoulder. I can feel your heart beating in your fingers, the heat in your skin. It’s a very advanced piece of machinery.”

 

Angela touched the space beneath the elbow, hair falling into her eyes as she ducked to be level with the limb.

 

“Does it use pseudonerves?” she asked.

 

Satya’s face pulled into a surprised expression, and Jack felt hope turn his chest warm and tight. This the most Angela had ever talked since being here— the easiest she’s ever done it.

 

“You are familiar with pseudonerves?” Satya inquired, impressed. Angela flushed, fumbling, suddenly having trouble placing the words in order.

 

“Jack gave me a book. And my… my _papa_ was a _doktor_ ,” she explained.

 

Behind her, Jack froze. He glanced at Gabriel, but the man did not turn to look at him. His eyes were planted by his plate.

 

Satya nodded, unfazed. “A noble career,” she said. “Yes, it does utilize pseudonerves, although to say that would be a broad statement, you understand. There are hundreds of sects of pseudos— receptors, receivers, even things relating to muscle memory and motor learning.” 

 

Angela shakes her head, bewildered. “It— does it connect to the cerebellum?”

 

“Well, of course.”

 

“What’s a cerebellum?” Gabriel asked, leaning back in his chair.

 

Satya rolled her eyes, bowing her neck to sip from her tea. “The infratentorial part of the brain. It deals with balance, voluntary movement.”

 

“How?” Angela demands, looking as if she wished she had something to write with. Her hands flex, come together and fold. “How does it connect?”

 

Setting down her mug, Satya pulls her arm back, takes on a thoughtful look. “You have many questions about this. It would take hours for me to fully explain.”

 

The excitement in Angela’s face flickers, vanishes slowly before Jack’s eyes. Something like doubt settles in, makes her shoulders wilt, her eyes fall down to her lap. She sits back. 

 

“I understand,” she says, subdued.

 

Satya nods once, hard. “Good,” she states. “So, would you like to come by later today? My afternoons are free, I could show you the blueprints and everything. They are essential to comprehending it all.”

 

Now, it’s Angela’s turn to blink, apparently dumbfounded at the suggestion. Her mouth opens and her voice creeks and dies out, as if the words were giving her problems. Swallowing, she looks from Jack to Satya, unsure, too cautious to be hopeful.

 

“I— I don’t… want to be a…”

 

Satya waves away her response, goes to pour herself a fresh cup. “It’s not an issue. It would be rather refreshing, in truth, to go over it all again. And to have someone who doesn’t think I’m speaking another language.” She casts a not-so-subtle look towards Gabe.

 

Angela’s mouth opens, closes. She nods— slowly at first, then quicker, smiling again, the one where Jack can see the white of her teeth and the wrinkles at the corners of her eyes, the flecks of aqua there in her irises. 

 

“Please,” she says, dipping her head.

 

Satisfied, Satya smiles, bringing the tea up to her lips. “It’s settled, then. Just stop by and knock whenever you’d like.”

 

“And here I thought you were far too busy to associate with us mortals,” Gabriel huffed, throwing her a lazy grin. 

 

Satya sighs. “To every absolute, there is an exception.”

 

“Quite the paradox.”

 

“Hmm.”

 

It was then that Ana walked in, dressed in boots and a dark overcoat, her uniform replaced by a blouse and jeans. Under her signature cap, her hair had been pulled up, tucked into a bun and pinned through by a pencil. A strand or two fell into her face. 

 

“Morning,” she said, moving to stand between Jack and Angela, a small smile sewn onto her face. She places a hand on Jack’s shoulder, squeezes playfully. “Couldn’t find you in your room. I thought for a moment you jumped ship.” 

 

“Ha,” he deadpans, mimicking her teasing grin. The sight her of was welcoming— even in casuals, she radiates the kind of _cool-and-collected_ that made Jack regret starting the day in such a panic, a flurry of adrenaline so intense it made him dizzy. He felt the weight on his shoulders lessen. “You wish.”

 

Ana winks at him, turns to nod amicably at Satya, lips still upturned. “Nice to see you again, dear. I see you’ve met Angela.”

 

“Indeed,” she concurs, stirring a spoonful of honey into her mug. “Nice to finally have another intellectual here at home. Between Mei being gone for months and you going off to fight a war, I’ve been rather lonely.”

 

“Thanks,” Jack and Gabriel stated in unison. Angela stifled a laugh, trying not to look pleased.

 

Ana picks up a plate, loads it modestly. She glances up at Angela across the bar, trained eyes narrowing as she notices the food that had not been touched on her dish. The woman’s brows pinch down, unsatisfied, and she tilts her face towards Jack, clearly ready to say something. He makes a small motion with his hand, one that tells her to leave it alone. There could be a lot of reasons Angela wasn’t eating right now; one of the articles he had read even claimed it was normal, a sort of sensory-overload some kids experience when moving to a new environment, one that makes them forget they were even hungry. This wasn’t the time to push her.

 

_Not now_ , he persists. Ana holds his stare for a moment, unhappy, before turning to fix herself a cup of coffee. Coffee— not tea. A rarity.

 

“Did Angela tell you what we’re doing today?” she asked pleasantly, unscrewing the lid to the half-and-half. Jack raised a brow, shook his head.

 

“Don’t think so. Ange?”

 

The girl looked up at him, taking a moment to orient herself. After the Satya promised to show her more about the biotech, she seemed to have trouble refocusing on anything else. “Ah, the— the mall?”

 

Jack raised an eyebrow, glances around at everyone else. Ana in casuals, Reyes missing his bulletproof vest, Angela sporting clothes that were borderline socially acceptable. He looked down at his own apparel, a crumpled blue uniform that was due for a wash. 

 

“Oh,” he said, setting down his fork, his plate empty. He remembered Ana saying something about going shopping last night. “That’s— yeah, that’s great, Ange. I should pick up some things, too. When we going?”

 

“Whenever you’d like,” Ana remarks, neatly quartering her fried egg. “I’d imagine you’d like to wash up first, though.”

 

Reyes leans over towards Jack and sniffs, pretends to gag, and then slumps down in his seat. Angela looks over at him, not sure if she should be concerned or amused.

 

“Hilarious,” Jack declares, standing and setting his plate in the sink, shrugging off his jacket. As much as they joked, a shower did sound glorious. And a shave. “I’ll be ready in ten. Satya, would you care to come along?”

 

“Thank you, but I should really get back to work.”

 

“Word around here is that you’ve been working a lot as of late,” Ana says, her tone testing the line of a friendly discussion and an oncoming lecture. Satya, suddenly very interested in her tea, makes an irritated motion with her human hand. 

 

“An exaggeration, I’m sure.”

 

Ana makes a knowing _mhmm_ sound, turning back to her breakfast.

 

The shower was quick but reviving, the past few days washing off him and trickling down into the drain. Everything was how he left it— his toothbrush, his shampoo, the sun-dried succulents. When he stepped out of the bathroom and shuffled through the closet, he found his clothes in perfect order, formal attired to the left and casuals to the right, a row of ties hanging crooked on the back of the door. Without much thought, he threw on a jeans and a short-sleeve, both tighter than he remembered.

 

His duffel from the field was still on his bed, zipped shut and bulging. He hadn’t unpacked. Glancing at the bag, he considers it, running a hand over the outer pocket where his dog-tags and passport are still tucked away. He hesitates. 

 

“Later,” he murmurs, forcing himself to turn and make for the exit.

 

The hallways are quiet. Sunlight cuts in through the windows and decorates the opposing wall in square patterns, making Jack squint every time he walks in front of them. The doors that dot the walkway in intervals remain shut tightly. He passes Hana’s dorm, hears the sound of snoring and the faint pulsing of music— dubstep, undoubtedly. She must have left one of Lucio’s tracks on last night while streaming, forgotten to turn it off before falling face-first into bed. Pausing, he stares down her door, considers knocking. 

 

He doesn’t have to. The entrance slides open, and to his surprise, Lucio himself strolls across the threshold, fiddling with one of his countless pairs of headphones. The young man is so absorbed in his work that he nearly walks right into Jack. 

 

_“Woh_ , man,” he starts, jerking his head up so quickly that he nearly trips over his own two feet. “Woh-kay, hey, you scared the daylights out of me, Cap,” he says in a low voice, as if afraid to wake the woman in the other room. He is wearing sweats and a bright hoodie that reads _Austin City Limits: 2k60;_ his dreadlocks hang tangled behind him, lose and fraying.

 

“Mr. Correia dos Santos,” Jack responds, standing straighter. Lucio shrunk back a little at the stiffness in his tone. 

 

“Ah— G’moring,” he says, hitting a button on the headphones. The music fades out. 

 

Jack frowns, feels the words bubble up in his chest, hot and impulsive. They are out his mouth before he can help it. “Is there a reason you’re sneaking out of Ms. Song’s room so early in the morning?”

 

Lucio blinks, uncomfortable, eyes darting to Jack’s watch. He laughs nervously, trying to deplete the tension. “I’m not, uh, sneaking. It’s ten-thirty.”

 

“ _Nine_ -thirty,” Jack persists, holding up his wrist. “Can’t you read analog?”

 

“…Yes?” he says, not at all certain. 

 

Jack drops his arm, sighs. He tugs the young recruit away from the door, the sound of Hana’s snoring falling out of earshot. “I’m going to ask you again: what were you doing in there?”

 

Lucio looks torn, his mouth opening and closing but no words coming out. He motions with his hands, sprawling his fingers out in hopes of keeping things calm. “Nothing! I wasn’t… I just forgot— something.”

 

“Right,” Jack deadpanned. “A killer alibi.”

 

The recruit looked up at him, raised a brow. “Alibi? What is this, a court case?” he half-joked.

 

“You’re not allowed in her room past midnight. It’s policy, unless that changed while I was away.” 

 

“Who says I was even in there past midnight?”

 

“You’re denying it?”

 

Lucio makes a face, glances over Jack’s shoulder. “I— Yes.”

 

Jack doesn’t move, crossing his arms. It’s funny, he thinks. It’s like he never left, like those months in Europe went on without him, like this is normal, almost routine. He eases his features out, tries to turn his tone more casual. “You’re not a good liar, Lucio.”

 

The young man looks further away, chewing on his lip. His free hand drums against his hip, fingers dancing to some invisible beat, an outlet for his nerves. He hesitates, features tight with worry. “I’m not supposed to tell you, alright? She’ll freak.”

 

“Well, rightfully so. You two are too young to be fooling around.”

 

Lucio looks up at him, confused, blinking hard. His lips purse, his hands raising up once more so his palms face Jack, his fingers straight. He looks like he’s struggling to process this. “Wait,” he says, “ _Wait_. What?”

 

“What do you mean, _what?”_

 

“You think we’re— like— having—“

 

“Well, yes.”

 

Lucio makes a noise at the back of his throat, some mix between a laugh and a groan. He crosses his toned arms, makes a huge X. “Nope. Nah-uh. Put it in reverse, man, ‘cause we’re _not.”_

 

Jack expression doesn’t change much. “You’re not?”

 

“We’re not! No! Why are you— God, this wasn’t a conversation I envisioned happening this morning. With you. Aw, _gross_.” His hands went to his hair, pulled hard at the thick strands. 

 

Jack made a time-out signal with his hands, knowing he didn’t have a lot of time left before Ana came looking for him. “Look, what else am I supposed to assumed seeing you tip-toe out of her room at this hour?”

 

For the first time since he can remember, Jack hears Lucio’s voice lose some of its cool. “I didn’t want to wake her up! She had a rough night, alright?”

 

Frowning, Jack leaned back, feels his stiffness giving way to concern. “What do you mean? Is she okay?”

 

Lucio pinches his nose, waves away his worry. He takes a breath, tells him, “She’s fine. She’s fine, man, she just— she has nightmares, you know?”

 

This knocks Jack completely off his pedestal of confidence, sends him tumbling off the side, clawing for any sense of control. His words run together, bleed into one another like watercolors. They are sloppy coming out of his mouth. “I— she— what do you mean, nightmares? Since when?”

 

Lucio scoffs to himself, crosses his arms. “Uh, since ever? They come and go. Last night was, like, a Cat-Five, for some reason.”

 

“A Cat-Five.”

 

“You know. Like, how people measure hurricanes.” 

 

Jack fumbles with this information, is not sure what to do with it. He licks his lips, takes on a quieter voice, eyes flickering to the closed door Lucio had emerged from. “What happened?”

 

Now, Lucio gives him a new look— serious and soft and regretful, an eyeful of dejection, of _really, Jack?_

 

“She’s been a soldier since she was sixteen,” he tells him in a low, unflinching tone. “She’s seen people _die_ since sixteen. The last time she was home, omnics tore it apart. She lost her sister, her mother. What do you _think_ happened, man?”

 

Jack’s mouth shuts tight. He dips his head, staring down at his boots, taking a moment to collect himself, feeling foolish— guilty, even— for assuming so much so quickly. It wasn’t like him. Eerily, he remembers Reinhardt last night at the table, remembers the powerful roll of his voice, remembers what he had told Angela. 

 

_We’ve all seen war, you know._

 

Lucio stares at him, goes on. “She likes my music. She says it’s enough, most nights. But sometimes she gets paranoid and panicky, and I hate it, so I stay with her. Okay?”

 

Silence. Jack lifts his head, arms crossed securely over his chest, looks at Lucio long and hard. The way he’s standing radiates resolve, a sort of resilience that he almost dares Jack to challenge, his dark hands tucked into fists, chin raised parallel to the floor. This is a new side of him— one the man has never seen up close before, all unforgivable and intense, a wall of fire. 

 

“Okay,” he says back, nodding slowly. 

 

Lucio holds his stare, nods in return. “Alright, then.” He holds out a hand. Jack considers it briefly, finds his mouth curling at the corners. They shake— to what, he’s not sure.

 

“Sorry,” he offers, tucking his hands into his pockets. “I just wanted to be sure… you know. That you two were being safe.”

 

Lucio laughs— a sound so free and careless that Jack feels his shoulders unhinge, his spine bending into a comfortable arc. It’s a wonder how quickly the recruit could switch gears, how effortlessly he reverted back from a highly trained combat operative to a part-time DJ, all soft edges and smiles. 

 

“I’m a doctor— kind of. And I’m twenty-three. I got safety down pat, Cap.”

 

Clearing his throat, Jack just nods. “Right. Well, I should get going. We’re taking Angela to the mall.”

 

Something flickers in Lucio’s expression. He shakes his head easily, hangs the headphones around his neck. “Yeah. Hey, about that…”

 

Jack blinks, bends down a little as Lucio takes a step closer. “What?”

 

“While we’re here, I just— I wanted to…“ He stops, gathers himself, makes a delicate motion with his hands. “I’m worried.”

 

Jack frowns, feels his fingers curl into fists.

 

“About what?” he asks, hearing the defensiveness flare up in his voice, much sharper than he intended.

 

Lucio pauses, fiddles for a moment. It was obvious that he was debating whether or not to say the words aloud, afraid to cross some invisible line, a no-fly-zone he wasn’t sure he should chance invading. He swallows, pushes through it. “I… You were the one that found her there, right? After…” He trails off, suddenly having trouble meeting Jack’s eyes. 

 

Jack stared, a little offset by the change in tone. “Yes,” he said, trying to keep his voice void of emotion, easy and factual. He’s not sure he has the energy to flash back to that night.

 

“Was it bad?” Lucio asked. 

 

Something in Jack’s chest drops, a feeling of free-fall, a sudden emptiness that leaves him a little light-headed. He thinks of Angela, bruised and broken under a blanket of dust, leg crushed between the wreckage and what was left of her mother. Goosebumps stab at the back of his neck as he remembers the texture of rotting flesh against his hands. The fluid that clung to him. The grime. He takes a breath, steadies himself.

 

“Yes,” he says again. There is no apathy in his voice this time around. “It was.”

 

Lucio exhales quietly, brings his face up. “Tell me.”

 

For one reason or another, it surprises Jack. He stares at the young man, his eyes the color of coffee, tireless and determined. For a moment, their intensity off-balances him. He fumbles. “I don’t think…” 

 

“I’ve seen some bad stuff in Rio, Jack. ‘Specially with kids, when the Crisis came through and the outskirts got… you know. The orphanages weren’t enough. I tried to help out. You won’t scare me.”

 

Jack doesn’t look away, carefully schooling his features back into line. He hesitates. Lucio leans in, presses harder, not taking no for an answer.

 

“ _Tell me_ , Jack.”

 

He does.

 

He’s shocked how easily he does it, how effortlessly all it rolls out, how Lucio doesn’t say a thing until he’s finished and it’s done. He doesn’t hold back, although he’ll wonder, later, if he should have— if it was right of him to place so much in the recruit’s hands, to tell him the stench of that place, the way Angela had originally flinched away from him but later latched on for dear life, terrified to be left alone once more. Taken aback by his own eagerness, he tells him how she had taken his hands into her own on the way to the safe zone. How Ana helped her with the bandaids. It takes two minutes, maybe three.

 

There is a silence after he stops. Lucio looks down between his shoes, lost in thought, his lean frame propped up against the wall. He’s got a shred of that fire in him, now— a steely sort of seriousness. He nods slowly, processing.

 

“I’m worried,” he says again.

 

A crooked noise creaks out of Jack, a half-laugh, half-scoff. “Join the club, kid.”

 

“What are you going to do?”

 

“What do you mean? We brought her here.”

 

“Right,” Lucio states, obviously. “But when it gets bad, what’s the game plan?”

 

Jack grappled for an answer, feeling like he was being tested on information he didn’t exactly study up on. The blood raced to his face, red and frenzied. “I— We’re figuring it out.”

 

Lucio waited, as if he expected more. The silenced stretched on.

 

“So you’re telling me you have no idea— no procedure— for when she gets triggered by God-knows-what and launches into an episode or something?” Lucio said, nonplused. “Have you seen had bad those things get? With kids?”

 

Jack felt his jaw tighten, the cords of his throat flexing in intervals. He thinks of Angela smiling at Satya, laughing at Gabriel, calm and content. “It won’t come to that,” he demanded, although he felt naïve once the words were out his mouth. 

 

Of _course_ it would come to that, one way or another. Marry had warned them yesterday as Jack stood bent over her desk, signing the papers, waiting for Angela to return with her things. He doesn’t remember her exact words— much of that morning was now a haze in his memory, a blurry smudge on his frontal lobe— but the terms _panic attacks_ and _PTSD_ stuck out, certainly.

 

He looks at Lucio. “You act like you know about this.”

 

The recruit shrugs, makes a dismissive motion with one hand. “Told you— Rio. There was a lot of clean up work I was a part’ve, mainly with the kids. I picked up a few things.”

 

It wasn’t hard to imagine Lucio there, babysitting a half-dozen preschoolers while others filtered through what was left of the tin-can homes and wooden shacks, common shelters in the suburbs of Rio. If there was anyone who could handle something like that and smile through it, it was him.

 

Lucio stared at him, arms crossed. After a moment, he nods to Hana’s door and drops his voice so it was barely above a whisper. “Look. Hana’s twenty, right? And she’s not close to over what happened ten years ago. She’s still dealing, in her own way. Now, I’m thinking about Angela— ‘round seven years old, who’s been dealing with worse, whose been dealing with it _alone_ … Cap, I don’t know if we’re the right people to handle that.” 

 

Jack feels that same stab of adrenaline once more; feels the words rise up in pocket of heat and harshness. “I’m not sending her back.”

 

Eyes widening, Lucio shakes his head, puts his hands up in defense. “No! No, I’d never— that’s not what I meant. Ijust… I’m concerned—”

 

“Yeah, you said that.“

 

“—for _you_.”

 

The voice crawls back into Jack’s throat, shrivels and dies. Surprise makes him straighten, and he stares down at the recruit, confused. 

 

“Excuse me?”

 

Lucio detaches himself from the wall, takes a deep breath. “I think you’re doing a great thing, Jack. But you’ve been on duty for the past half-year, and I heard the suits called you back just to put you on this whole _Talon_ gig, and… and I just think you need a _break_ , man. For your own sake.”

 

Jack holds his gaze, feels his jaw loosen. Something new pushes against his throat, a sensation that tickles his nose, makes him feel the need to swallow. He tries to laugh, to brighten the mood, but the sound gets stuck and withers in his chest, leave a bitter taste on his tongue.

 

“It’s not your job to worry about me,” he says, carefully.

 

The younger man twists his heel against the tile, glances towards the window.

 

“You sure make a habit of it,” he murmurs, almost shy.

 

The silence comes back, and the hallway goes cold. Eventually, Lucio looks back, lets his shoulders drop. “Hey. I think what you’re doing with Angela is amazing. I don’t mean to overshadow that. You just… you’ve been away awhile, and this is new, and I— _we_ — just want you to know that you don’t have to do this by yourself. Obviously.”

 

Jack stares. He has no response ready for this, no preset, no default. His hands feel awkward where they hand by his sides. A profound sense of gratefulness washes over him, pricks at the hairs on arms, his neck, and he swallows down the shakiness in his chest, finds that hard rock of resolve he keeps close for moments like this. 

 

“I know,” he says, lets the words hang there between them, lets them sink in. “I know.”

 

Lucio nods, taking time to stretch out his shoulders, the white of his teeth visible when he smiles. “Well. Good then. I ‘oughta get going. Lena’s spotting me in the gym, and I’m kind of late.”

 

“Me too,” Jack admits, glancing at the time. He is surprised— it felt like the two of them had been here for more than seven minutes. “Hey, look, I appreciate you all being… you know. It makes things easier.”

 

Lucio grins wider, flashes him a lazy salute. “‘Course, Cap. Good luck with the mall and everything. And let me know if there’s anything I can help with, alright?”

 

“I will,” Jack concedes, “Thanks.”

 

The recruit starts down the hall, padding barefoot towards his own dorm, but before he can turn the corner Jack can’t help but call out once more. It was a sort of impulse, a jerk in his chest, something that made the blood pump faster between his ears. 

 

“Hey. Hey, uh… she’s not really eating. I don’t know if it’s… _normal_ , or…”

 

Lucio looks at him from across the hall, tilts his head just a little. “Hana has trouble eating, sometimes. After a bad night.”

 

He thinks of the half-moon shapes of purple under Angela’s eyes, how her hands seemed to quiver when they had nothing to fuss over, how she reacted when asked how she slept. 

 

“She’s having a good day, though,” Jack persists, surely, “She’s been talking and everything.”

 

Lucio shrugs. “Good days don’t cancel out the bad nights, man.”

 

The words seem to echo. Processing them, Jack forces his head to move up and down, says something like _okay_ or _right_ or _thank you_ , and then Lucio is gone, and he’s left, the sunlight from the windows rising to meet his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> should i have split this into another two chapters? probably. did i, though? nah.
> 
> i feel like i should talk about all the phases this went through and all the things i like about it and all the things i wish i did differently, but, meh, i'm tired. and have to go direct a play. //insert shrug emoji here.
> 
> next chapter is vaguely planned out but will likely not be posted for two or three months. i'm busy, guys-- i got other fics in the works that i can't wait to post, and a ton of personal stuff that i have to finish up. but, alas, know i am far from through with this story, and am excited to continue on!
> 
> thanks for sticking with me through >51k words. it's been a blast to write. i really, really hope you enjoyed this chapter, and that you enjoy what's to come.
> 
> cheers, guys.


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